


Headhunters

by JCapasso



Series: Quantity Over Quality [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Set ten years after the end of Quantity Over Quality, fifteen years after Damon and Elena's arrival in LA, and at an unspecified point in the Lucifer timeline after Lucifer returned from Hell. No deckerstar. Chloe, Dan, and Ella are in on the devil secret.Stefan loses control and gets away from Jeremy while they were feeding. The body count he leaves soon brings in Lucifer and Chloe to investigate a new serial killer.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Stefan Salvatore, Damon Salvatore/Elena Gilbert/Lucifer Morningstar, Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore, Jenna Sommers/Dan Espinoza, Jeremy Gilbert/Ella Lopez
Series: Quantity Over Quality [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979572
Comments: 23
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [ripper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24757012) by [ladyTpower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyTpower/pseuds/ladyTpower). 



“You what?!” Damon bellowed, making Jeremy shrink away from his anger. 

“I’m sorry. I got distracted for a few minutes. I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll fix it, Damon. I promise,” Jeremy said desperately. There was nothing he hated more than disappointing his brother in law. 

“You’ll fix it?!” Damon asked incredulously. “My brother is loose on a ripper binge in the middle of fucking Los Angeles, and you think you can /fix/ it?!” It had taken two years of constant work to get Stefan able to feed mostly safely. He had been a ripper for so long that it was much harder to break that conditioning than it had been in Jenna. Even now, when Stefan was already emotionally off-kilter it was harder for him keep control. 

Elena put her hand on Damon’s arm as Jenna wrapped an arm around her distraught nephew’s shoulders. “We’ll get him back, Damon,” Elena promised. “It’s not just Jeremy’s fault. We all knew that he was overly emotional right now. We should have taken him with us and let Jeremy take Jenna.”

“There’s no use trying to place blame right now,” Jenna chimed in. “What ifs never helped anything. There’s no guarantee that you two would have been able to stop him either. He’s just as strong as Damon and a lot stronger than you. We need to be focusing on finding him.”

Damon sighed heavily. He’d played this game before and he hated it. “Okay. Fine. Jenna, you get online and start looking for signs. Elena…”

“I’ll grab one of his shirts and take it to Bonnie and see if she can track him magically,” Elena nodded. 

“Good. You and me are gonna head back to where it happened and see if we can’t find some clues as to where he might have gone,” Damon grabbed Jeremy’s shoulder and started dragging him towards the door. “Keep in touch with anything you find,” Damon called over his shoulder to Elena and Jenna. 

Jenna watched worriedly as Damon manhandled a despondent Jeremy out the door. “He’ll be okay,” Elena assured her. “Damon’s just upset right now. He’ll get over it.”

“I know. It’s just…Jeremy looks up to him so much,” Jenna sighed sadly. 

“I know. But everyone makes mistakes. Damon knows that. Once he cools down it’ll be fine. You know that Damon loves Jeremy too. They’ll be fine.” 

Jenna nodded. She did know that, but it didn’t mean she didn’t worry. She had long ago became the mother hen of their whole vampire household, despite being one of the ones that needed the most handholding out in the world. 

Once Elena could see that Jenna was mostly okay, she blurred upstairs to get one of Stefan’s dirty shirts from his hamper and then out the door to her own Camaro convertible of a much newer model than Damon’s. She got why he liked the older cars, but she enjoyed the features that came with the newer ones. She sped through the streets towards Talia’s store to find Bonnie. Bonnie had finished her training with the older witch and her family a few years ago, but had stayed on to help out. Not that they needed the help, but they were family now and since Bonnie wanted to stay in the city anyway, she might as well. 

When Elena burst in, Talia’s oldest granddaughter Runa was running the counter since she was sixteen now and Elena quickly asked her, “Is Bonnie around?” 

“She’s upstairs helping the little ones with their spellwork,” Runa told her. 

“Thank you,” Elena said as she blurred towards the stairs. “Sorry. Emergency,” she said as she burst into the room where the family did their lessons. “I need your help, Bonnie.”

“What’s wrong?” Bonnie asked worriedly, pulling Elena into the hallway. 

“Stefan…he lost it and got away from Jeremy. We need to find him fast,” Elena said worriedly. 

“Right. Okay. You got…” she was cut off by the shirt thrust into her hands. “Okay, let me grab Talia to take over here and I’ll see if I can locate him.” Since Bonnie knew him better than the rest of the family, she would be the best one to do the locator spells. Stefan still tended to keep his distance from people outside his family. They all knew that it was something of a long shot though. There were far too many heavily warded locations in this city and Stefan knew them as well anyone. He would probably be out and about quite a bit on his binge, but he would be constantly on the move and keeping up with him would be difficult. 

“Thank you, Bonnie. I’m gonna go see if I can help Damon and Jeremy with the tracking. Keep me updated?” 

“I will,” Bonnie promised. 

She caught up with Damon and Jeremy, but they hit a dead end. According to Bonnie, Stefan had been on the move quite a bit and then he just disappeared which meant that he was hunkering down someplace warded. That was the bad thing about how LA tended to attract witches. They had a lot of boltholes, most of which weren’t in everyday use. Damon cursed and grabbed the nearest thing he could get his hands on and threw it at the wall of the alley they were in. “If he’s hiding that means he’s sleeping before he gets up and gets back to it.”

“Then we might as well do the same. Since Bonnie couldn’t get a location pinned down of where he might be and there are too many possibilities for us to check, we should be as rested as we can when he resurfaces,” Elena reasoned. 

“You know that Bonnie can’t track him continuously right? She has to rest herself, not to mention that no witch has the power to keep a spell like that going nonstop even when she’s awake.”

“I know,” Damon said irritated. “It was our best option to find him fast, but now we’re gonna have our work cut out for us.” 

“We’ll find him, Damon,” Elena assured him pulling him into a hug. 

Damon hugged her close and rested his head on hers soaking up the comfort. “I hope so ‘Lena. I can’t take losing my brother again after everything it took to get us here.”

“I’m so sorry, Damon,” Jeremy said for about the hundredth time that night, and this time he was near tears. 

Damon took a few deep breaths before he reached out and pulled Jeremy into the hug. “I know, kid. Nobody’s perfect.” Jeremy nodded against Damon’s shoulder. The forgiveness helped, but not completely. He would never forgive himself for this, even if everyone else did. 

They headed home and went straight to sleep only to be woken up at the buttcrack of dawn by Jenna. “We’ve got a trail,” she said gravely. 

Damon and Elena were up and dressed in record time. Jenna offered to go get Jeremy, but Damon and Elena told her not to. “We don’t want to draw too much attention in a bigger group. If it is Stefan, there will be more locations soon enough. Send him to the next one.” 

“Alone?” Jenna asked curiously. 

“He’s not going to run into Stefan there. We just need to check and make sure that it is Stefan so we can start to put together a pattern. He can handle that just fine,” Damon told her. They all knew that the last thing Jenna needed was to be anywhere near murder scenes. If it wasn’t Stefan, there would be far too much blood for her to be around safely. Not when they had to be more focused on the scene than her control. 

Damon and Elena, unfortunately, didn’t beat the police to the scene. They didn’t really expect to though given that the information came from the police in the first place thanks to Jenna’s hacking skills. They mingled behind the line, trying to get as much information from a distance as they could. “I don’t smell much blood at all,” Elena whispered so that only the vampire ears could hear her. 

“Which means, it probably is Stefan, but we need to be sure,” Damon whispered back, trying to tune his ears in to what the authorities were saying. 

“…bodies are completely drained of blood which is weird enough, but the most interesting thing is the removal of the heads,” Damon heard a woman’s voice say. 

“How so, Ella?” another woman asked. 

“I can’t find any sign of tool marks and judging by the trauma to the area, it looks like they were actually ripped off, but unless this guy is superman or something, that’s not possible,” the first woman replied. 

“Definitely Stefan,” Damon whispered to Elena. 

While Damon was focusing on the conversation, Elena was watching like a hawk, trying to make sure they didn’t miss anything. She noticed one of the guys watching them and the look on his face made her nervous. He clearly wasn’t a detective. He was too well dressed for that. He was too well-dressed to be any kind of a public servant really which brought to mind who he was and why he was there. “The guy in the window. He’s watching us,” Elena whispered to Damon. 

Damon turned his attention to where Elena had pointed out and quickly came to the same conclusions that she had. “I don’t like this,” Damon whispered. Just the fact that he was seemingly focusing on them out of all the people here was nerve-wracking enough. “We’ve got what we need. We should get out of here.” 

Elena nodded slowly, wrapping her arm around Damon’s waist as he pulled her close and they started walking away down the street, looking for all the world like any random couple going about their day who had stopped to gawk at a murder scene for a few moments.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucifer watched them go with a frown. There was something about that couple that seemed…different. His gut was telling him that there was more than met the eye. He committed their faces to memory and if they found anything that pointed their way, he would know. By the time they finished at that scene there was another one. It seemed that they had a serial killer on their hands and that he was on a spree. 

When they got to the next scene which had already been cordoned off, Lucifer scanned the gawkers and saw someone else that gave him that same strange feeling. Like something pricking at the edge of his consciousness that he couldn’t quite place. He memorized that face as well while still managing to keep track of what was going on with the case. He noticed the young man notice him and start shifting uncomfortably before turning and walking away with a forced casualty that Lucifer could pick up a mile away. 

The third scene of the day found the same couple from the first scene and Lucifer was suddenly sure that there was something going on and this time he pointed it out to the detective. “See that couple over there? The young well-dressed one?” 

“I see them,” Chloe said, wondering where he was going with this. 

“They were at the first scene this morning too,” Lucifer told her. “And there was someone similar at the last scene.” 

“We should talk to them then,” Chloe said, starting to move in that direction as the couple started walking away. Lucifer could only tell that they were spooked because he was looking for it. They were much better actors than the other kid. 

Lucifer caught her arm before she could. “No. Not yet. There’s something about them that I can’t put my finger on.”

“Like demonic maybe?” Chloe asked worriedly. “Would a demon be able to do this?” 

“Rip their heads off, sure, but draining all blood from the body with none of it on the scene…that’s not any demonic MO that I’ve ever heard of. Not to mention, if they were demons I would be able to tell for sure. No, they’re something else, but I don’t think they’re human.” 

“So what do you suggest?” Chloe asked. 

“We need more information,” Lucifer said, trying to work out some sort of plan. “Do you have one of those car tracker thingies?” 

“We can’t just use them on any random person without a warrant,” Chloe pointed out. 

“If they’re not human, they’re not likely to make a fuss and draw attention to it,” Lucifer countered. “They’ve already noticed me watching them. And you now, so we need someone else to follow them from the next scene.”

“Dan can do it. And we can have one of the uniforms distract them while he attaches it once we know what they’re driving,” Chloe suggested. “If you think that’s safe,” she added with a frown. 

“I don’t think that they’re doing this,” Lucifer said thoughtfully. “I don’t get that kind of vibe from them. But I do think that they’re connected to it somehow. Even if they were, I don’t think that they would attack a uniformed cop in public in broad daylight unless they were backed into a corner somehow. As long as he keeps it to casual questions, just to be on the safe side, it should be okay.” 

Chloe nodded worriedly. “Well this seems to be the last scene for today, not that we’re likely to get any sleep tonight anyway, so we might as well head back to the station and start going through all this for clues. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch whoever is behind it before they strike again.”

Damon and Elena hid their nerves as they left the scene. “They noticed us,” Damon told her as they got in the car, sure that she had realized it too. 

“And recognized us from this morning too,” she nodded. “But we can’t stop going to check. We need a concrete pattern if we’re going to find Stefan.”

“And it’s more important than ever that we find him before they do,” Damon nodded. “It’s not like they can pin anything on us anyway. We have plenty of people who can and will vouch for alibis. We’re just interested in crime scenes. That’s all.” 

“True,” Elena nodded. “They’ll be suspicious, but it’s not like they can hurt us. If need be we can leave town once we get Stefan back.” They had been there for almost fifteen years already. It had been a good run. Not that they wouldn’t try to salvage their lives there, but if they had to cut and run, then oh well. 

They stopped for dinner on the way home, far from the scenes of the crime just to be safe, and when they got home, the realized that Jeremy and Jenna hadn’t gone out yet either and were both more than a little hungry, so they went right back out. Jeremy just didn’t trust himself anymore to keep tabs on a ripper. Hopefully, he would get over that soon enough, but in the meantime, Elena took Jeremy while Damon took Jenna. 

The next morning Jenna woke them up with another crime scene and they were out the door in record time, still not beating the cops there. They only stuck around long enough to get confirmation that it was Stefan and didn’t notice the man slipping in behind them as they walked off. Just as Damon opened the car door for Elena, one of the cops called to them and rushed over. They spared a glance at each other before Damon closed the car door and they moved to talk to him. They didn’t notice the man bending down behind the car since their back was to him as they answered the routine questions from the cop, giving him the story they had worked out about writing a book on crime in the city and that’s why they kept showing up at crime scenes. It was a relatively short conversation before they were allowed to go back to the car and leave. 

They stopped by Talia’s shop to see Bonnie who was ready to try another locator spell, and this time they would try using Damon’s blood to track his brother to see if that could help pin down a better location. Even if they could see the path he was taking it would be better than just the simple scrambling that came up when he was on the move or the nothing when he was warded. 

Once Dan had let them know that the tracker was in place, Chloe pulled out her phone to keep tabs on it while they continued to work the scene. Lucifer pointed out the same kid as before at the next scene too so Dan put a tracker on his car too with the same method, and Chloe immediately changed the colors so that she would know who was who. The first couple had stopped at some occult shop for a few hours before going towards the scene they were on the way to now, while the lone kid headed to one of the beach homes in the rich part of town. 

Lucifer and Chloe purposefully paid little attention to the couple at the scene. Let them think their lie of working on a crime novel was believed for now. Once they left, Chloe saw them head to the same house as the kid before leaving again and heading to the shopping district and then going back to the same house again. That must be where they lived. She made a note of the address and set one of the officers to watch on the computer and let her know if they left again while she dug into the rest of the evidence. 

Chloe was woken up by the officer with the information, “They’re on the move and they’re moving /fast/.”

“Which one?” Chloe asked, pulling up the tracking on her phone and nudging Lucifer awake too. 

“The blue one,” he told her. 

“The couple then,” Chloe nodded. “How fast?” 

“Over a hundred and thirty,” the officer told her. 

“They’re gonna get someone killed that way!” Chloe said worriedly as she and Lucifer headed for Lucifer’s car, knowing that Chloe’s wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. 

“Not necessarily if they’re not human, detective,” Lucifer told her as they got in and Chloe directed Lucifer towards them. He could drive at those speeds reasonably safely. 

“It’s like they have no idea where they’re going,” Chloe muttered annoyed as they made yet another abrupt turn and she had to try and compensate. The fact that they were coming from two different directions didn’t help. 

Damon was cursing the amount of traffic they had to weave in and out of even at three in the morning as they raced towards where Bonnie’s tracker was following Stefan’s trail. Thankfully Damon’s blood worked and she finally got a bead on him. She was on the phone with Elena directing them as Stefan moved. When Bonnie reported that Stefan had stopped, Damon hit the gas harder. That meant that he was killing people. Thankfully they were only a few blocks away. Damon skidded the car to a stop in the driveway and he, Elena, and Jeremy jumped out of the car and blurred inside. Unfortunately they were too late for the family, but Damon managed to tackle Stefan on his way out and with Elena and Jeremy’s help, get him to his feet with them fighting him the whole time. 

Unfortunately, that was the cue for the shit to hit the fan. They had been so distracted with Stefan that they hadn’t heard the other car speed up or the people headed for the door. “Freeze!” Chloe said, pointing her gun at the group. Stefan took that opportunity to rip himself from their grips and blur out the door. 

“Damnit,” Damon cursed taking off after him as Elena jumped in front of the bullet that went for Damon when he moved.


	3. Chapter 3

“Elena!” Jeremy cried, kneeling next to her to pull the bullet out while Lucifer ran out after the two who got away, but couldn’t find them. He’d never seen anything move that fast. He rushed back inside to make sure Chloe was okay to find her still pointing her gun at the other two, but not shooting again since one was on the floor and the other seemed more worried about her than the woman pointing the gun at them. 

When Lucifer came back in, he shook his head that they got away, and now that he had her back again, she tried to assert control over the scene. Whatever they were was clearly not human and she wasn’t going to be doing anything but defending until she had her own devilish bodyguard back. “Put your hands in the air,” she told the boy. 

Jeremy had just finished pulling the bullet from Elena’s chest so that she could heal and she groaned as Jeremy then raised his hands and turned towards the detective with only a glance at the man on the other side of the room watching them like a hawk. The detective narrowed her eyes when Elena sat up a moment later, seemingly completely healed and put her own hands in the air. “We don’t mean anyone any harm,” she said slowly. 

“What are you?” Lucifer asked coldly before both he and the detective jumped, the latter spinning her gun at the slamming door. 

“I lost him,” Damon snapped irritably before blurring across the room and yanking the gun out of the detective’s hands. “Thanks a lot.”

Lucifer knew that at their speeds, he could never hope to control more than one at the same time and if they had enough strength to rip a human head clear from the body, he would easily be overpowered if they worked together, so he decided to try the diplomatic route. At least until they had some idea of what was going on here. “Lost who?” Lucifer asked pointedly. 

“Right. ‘Lena?” he questioned jerking his head towards the female detective as he moved towards the man. They both kept their hands fully visible and moved slowly but didn’t need to get /too/ close. Damon caught the man’s eyes and said, “You were never here and you never saw any of this. You will go back to where you were and go to sleep as you’ve been doing this whole time.”

Lucifer was about to ask what the hell he was talking about when the detective turned without a word and walked out. Lucifer almost went after her before deciding against it. If this was going to come to a fight, then the farther away she was the better. He didn’t like the idea of being vulnerable around these beings. It did make him feel a little better about the chances of avoiding a fight though. They clearly could have killed them rather than try to get them to leave. He waited until the detective was clear, even as the confused expression pulled across the man’s face, before he said, “Yeah, that’s not going to work on me.” 

“What are you?” Damon asked him, stepping back and taking a defensive stance in front of Elena and Jeremy. 

“That’s what I’d like to know. You first,” Lucifer told him. 

Elena could tell that Damon was puffing up to start an argument and she wanted to avoid that if possible, so she stepped out next to Damon and said, “We’re vampires.” 

“Vampires,” Lucifer said skeptically. “And this…” he motioned to the four dead and headless bodies, “is what vampires do?” 

“No,” Jeremy protested. “We don’t kill people. We just take a little bit from each person and then make them forget just like we made your partner forget.” 

“The one you were chasing did this,” Lucifer pointed out, not believing them for a minute. 

“He’s sick,” Elena protested, stopping when Damon held out a hand to make her shut up. 

“We answered your question,” Damon said. “Your turn to answer ours and then maybe we can see about more q and a.”

Lucifer considered that for a moment before he shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m the devil.” 

The kid snorted in disbelief as Damon and Elena scrutinized him skeptically. “Uh-huh. Sure you are.”

Lucifer pulled his devil face to the foreground, having no problem giving the truth to those who were clearly also not human. “So you’re the devil…and working with the police?” Elena asked confused. 

“Contrary to popular human opinion, I am not evil. I /punish/ evil,” Lucifer told them, realizing that if anyone could understand being judged unfairly it would be them. Assuming they were telling the truth of course which wasn’t necessarily a given. 

Damon shrugged. “Fair enough. Well my brother isn’t evil. Like my wife said, he’s sick.” 

“Sick how?” Lucifer asked, trying to get as much information as possible. 

“He has a rare condition in vampires. He’s what we call a ripper and he’s currently in the middle of a ripper binge,” Damon told him. 

“It’s my fault,” Jeremy said sadly. “I was supposed to be watching him and I let myself get distracted.”

“No, Jer,” Elena shook her head. “We all knew that he’d been on edge lately. We shouldn’t have sent you alone with him. We all should have been more careful.” 

“I need a little more information here,” Lucifer tried to bring them back on point. 

“Basically, blood is like a drug to him. If he’s not careful it can make him lose control. That’s how people lose their heads,” Elena tried to explain. 

“And clearly he doesn’t stop at the one,” Lucifer said impatiently. 

“No. Once the first one dies, his guilt crushes him and he ends up turning off his humanity at which point he turns into a killing machine,” Damon told him. 

“And you believe that we should let this keep happening?” Lucifer asked incredulously. Even if he was sick, he still had to be stopped. 

“No. This is the first time since the nineteen twenties that he’s gotten out of control like this. Once we find him, we can lock him up, get his humanity back, and get him back to normal,” Damon told him, fully prepared to kill for his brother, even if it was the devil, but hoping they could avoid it. 

“And we’ve already made plans to increase our watch on him so that this doesn’t happen again,” Elena told him. 

Lucifer considered the matter for a moment, realizing that with as fast and strong as this vampire was, he would never be able to catch him on his own. “I will help you track him down, but I want to see how you handle getting his humanity back and speak to him afterwards before I decide how to handle it legally.”

“It could take weeks or even months to get his humanity back,” Elena warned the devil. 

“And he will be securely locked up for the entire time?” Lucifer asked. 

“We can’t and won’t risk him hurting anyone,” Damon said defensively. “He will thank us for it once he’s back.”

“My offer and demand still stand,” Lucifer told them. He also had every intention of checking out their security methods for himself too. Punishing someone who was acting from illness would only be acceptable if it was the only way and if they had another way to protect people, then he would give it a chance.

“Fair enough,” Elena agreed before Damon could say anything else. 

“Just know that I will protect my brother to my last breath if necessary,” Damon couldn’t let it go without that warning. 

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t become necessary,” Lucifer said evenly. 

“Yes. Let’s hope,” Damon replied. 

“We should get to work on finding him,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“Right,” Elena said pulling out her phone and calling Bonnie, putting her on speakerphone. “Do you still have him?”

“No. He went dark about ten minutes ago,” Bonnie told her. “You lost him?” 

“Yeah. It’s kind of a long story,” Elena sighed. 

“Did you at least save the family?” Bonnie asked hopefully. 

“Unfortunately not,” Elena said regretfully. 

“Well he’s probably not going to come out of his warding again tonight,” Bonnie told them. 

“I know. Do you think you’ll be able to track him when he does come out again?” 

“I’ll need some more of Damon’s blood for the locator spell,” she told them. 

“I’ll come by first thing in the morning,” Damon promised. 

Elena turned to Lucifer. “Do you have time of death for the bodies? If we can pin down his active hours we can know when to try the locator?” 

“They’ve all been between midnight and four am,” Lucifer told her.

“You got that Bon?” Elena asked. 

“Yep. In that case, Damon, don’t come until after noon. I plan to crash and not wake up until at least then,” she told them. 

“Whatever you say Bon-bon,” Damon told her. 

“Goodnight,” Elena told her. “And thank you.”

“You know I could never live with myself if people died when I could save them. You don’t have to thank me,” Bonnie said around a yawn. “Goodnight.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Locator spells? Using blood?” Lucifer asked with a raised eyebrow once the call was disconnected. 

“Vampires and witches are usually mortal enemies, which is understandable since vampires are usually evil and witches are usually good, but most witches don’t mind working with good vampires like us,” Jeremy shrugged. 

“And since Stefan is my brother, our blood connects us so mine can be used to find him,” Damon answered the second question. 

“I have a lot more questions, but that can wait until we’re not in the middle of a crisis,” Lucifer said shaking his head. 

“Same here,” Damon replied. 

“But for the moment, there’s just a few more things. First of all, that mind control thing you did on my partner…how do we undo it?” Lucifer continued. 

“Undoing it would mean her finding out about the supernatural world,” Elena pointed out worriedly. 

“She already knows about me, so as long as you’re really as good as you say, you have nothing to worry about with her finding out about you,” Lucifer told them. 

“And Stefan?” Damon asked pointedly. 

“Stefan is your brother?” Lucifer asked, not having gotten names. That got a nod, so Lucifer shrugged. “She is also friends with a demon, as well as angels that have been rather murdery in the past. She recognizes when things are outside of human authority. As long as it’s dealt with and humans are kept safe, I can get her to drop it.” 

“And if need be we can compel her to drop it,” Jeremy pointed out. 

“Okay. I’ll have to be the one to undo it though. Only the vampire that places it can undo it,” Elena told him. 

“And we’re not telling the entire police department about us,” Damon said firmly. 

“I don’t plan to ask you to,” Lucifer chuckled. “Other than her there are only two others that know about me, so telling them would make things easier, but everyone else is still in the dark and should stay that way.” 

“Unless it’s necessary for the other two to know to handle this issue, lets just stick with you and your partner for now. We can talk about others later,” Elena suggested, getting a nod from Lucifer. 

“That’s fair. Do you know if this was his only attack tonight or if there were others?” Lucifer asked. 

“We’re not sure. Witches can’t track continuously. It takes too much power. She’s just been checking every few hours until she got a hit,” Elena explained. 

“In that case, why don’t you come back with me and undo your mind control on my partner and then you can take off while I explain. You should avoid suspicion by staying away from the crime scenes in case anyone else starts recognizing you. I’ll call you and update you on anything you need to know and you call me when you have a location on him.” 

“We have one more question for you before we go anywhere,” Damon said. “How did you follow us here?” 

“We put trackers on your cars,” Lucifer admitted. “I’ll wipe the logs when I get back and you can make the only other officer who knows about tonight forget with your mind thingy while you’re undoing the one on the detective.” Once that was done and the vampires were on the way home, Chloe was trying not to lose her shit. 

“You’re telling me that vampires are real and we have a whole freaking group of them in LA?!” 

“Just calm down detective,” Lucifer tried to placate her. “They are just as invested in stopping this as we are. The vampire causing all the death has an illness and once they catch him, they assure me that they can cure him and make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

“And we’re just supposed to let it go at that?” Chloe asked incredulously. 

“I plan on making sure of their solution, but assuming it works, what else should we do? It’s not as if we can hold a vampire in a prison or even a mental institution which is where he should more likely be. I don’t like the idea of just killing someone for being ill as long as there is another way,” Lucifer tried to reason with her. 

Chloe sighed and put her head in her hands, giving her hair a frustrated tug. “I see your point. But /I/ want to be assured of this method too. If it’s not good enough…”

“Then we will do what we can to make it good enough,” Lucifer assured her. He didn’t relish the idea of it coming to a fight. He doubted any human could kill any of them, which meant it would be on him. He had still only killed two beings in his entire existence and both of them would forever weigh on his soul even though he wasn’t given any choice there. The dangerous one he could stomach killing if he absolutely had to. Killing the others who just wanted to live in peace to get to him, not so much. And that was if he could even kill them in the first place. If they could even die. 

Once he had her reluctantly convinced, they grabbed Ella and headed to the new crime scene, and hope that there weren’t any more earlier in the night. It turned out that there had been one that wasn’t found until morning, but they had already finished at this one before that call came in. Given the fact that they had all been going almost non-stop for two and a half days, and Lucifer and Chloe had hopes that it would be over that night, they took the rest of the day off to go home and get some sleep. They wanted to be fresh for the festivities that night. 

Damon had agreed to leave the tracker on his car for now so they could keep track of where they went that night once they got a bead on Stefan, but once they had him it would be coming off. Lucifer didn’t mention the tracker on Jeremy’s car too, so he accepted that without argument. They got the call from Bonnie just after midnight and raced out, Elena sending a quick text to Lucifer that they were chasing Stefan but didn’t know where he was going yet. 

Lucifer and Chloe got in the car, with Chloe tracking their location again as they drove. It ended up going almost exactly like the previous night, except they caught up to Stefan before anyone died. Damon tackled him in the middle of the living room just as Chloe and Lucifer burst in the door. Damon pulled the syringe out of his pocket and wasted no time injecting Stefan with the vervain and he was out like a light. Elena and Jeremy compelled the couple who had come downstairs with a baseball bat to see what was going on and they dragged Stefan out to the car. 

“We’re following you back until we’re sure he’s secure,” Chloe said firmly, realizing just how useless both she and Lucifer had been on this trip. 

“We expected as much,” Elena nodded. 

“I’ll even ride with you if you’d rather,” Jeremy offered. It would be rather cramped in Damon’s car with all four of them anyway. 

“I don’t have a backseat,” Lucifer said with a shrug. 

“Okay. We’ll make sure to stay slow enough that you can follow then,” Damon told them before tossing the keys to Elena. “You drive. If he wakes up early I’ll need to be in back to keep him under control while Jeremy doses him again.”

“What was in that syringe?” Lucifer asked. “Some kind of tranquilizer?” 

“Not one that works on humans,” Damon said. “But it’s the only thing that works for vampires.” 

“Don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell us what it is?” Chloe asked despite knowing the probable answer. 

“Nope,” Damon said as he manhandled his unconscious brother into his backseat. 

“Maybe when and if we trust each other a little more,” Elena told them. 

“What if we run into other vampires that aren’t as peaceful as you,” Chloe wasn’t going to give up that easily. 

“Not likely. Most vampires avoid this part of the country like the plague. Too much sun,” Damon chuckled. 

“But you don’t mind,” Lucifer asked. 

“We have protection from the sun. It’s not something most vampires have access to,” Elena said cryptically.

“We even like to surf,” Jeremy joked. 

“Well that explains why you settled in LA,” Chloe snorted, getting a little more comfortable with these…people, but not completely yet. 

“Actually, we didn’t start surfing until after we got here. We just wanted to see someplace we’d never seen before and fell in love with it,” Elena shrugged. 

“How long have you been here?” Lucifer asked curiously. He had assumed they were new, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case. 

“Damon and I moved here about fifteen years ago. Jeremy and Jenna, who you haven’t met yet, joined us about a year later and Stefan about five years after that,” Elena saw no harm in answering that question. Letting them know how long they’d been here without any incidents might even help their case. 

When Lucifer just nodded, not seeing any more reason to delay, they all got in their cars to leave. Lucifer told Chloe on the way what he had figured out that each of their names were based on what they called each other since he had more contact with them then she had.


	5. Chapter 5

When they pulled up in the driveway of the huge house, Chloe gawked at it in awe for a minute before Lucifer pulled her along, following the vampires inside. Chloe didn’t stop gaping at the grandeur once they got inside though. Damon was carrying Stefan over his shoulders as they walked into what looked like a cross between a gentleman’s lounge and a library and to the back wall. Elena reached out and hit a hidden latch and one of the bookshelves popped out from the wall and Elena pulled it open revealing a short hallway that gave both Lucifer and Chloe the creeps. Chloe even put a hand on her gun as she followed them into it. Someone else they hadn’t met yet, likely the mentioned Jenna, opened a thick steel door as they came up. 

“I’ve got everything ready for him,” she said looking sadly at the unconscious body as Damon brought him in and put him on the cot in the cell. It was then locked with a key, followed by a thick steel bar, and then a heavy padlock on the steel bar. Damon passed one key to Elena and held onto the other himself. 

They had also noticed a steel chair in one corner bolted to the floor with metal restraints on the arms, legs, and across the back before they followed the group back out, letting them put the bookcase back into place as well while Damon went to pour drinks. Chloe declined, but Lucifer accepted the top shelf bourbon with grace. He was more of a scotch drinker personally, but he had nothing against bourbon either. Once they were settled, before anyone could get into anything heavy, Jenna said, “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Jenna.” She held out her hand. 

Chloe hesitated a moment before she took it first. “Detective Chloe Decker.”

Lucifer was next and kissed the back of her hand charmingly. “Lucifer. Morningstar.” 

Jenna chuckled, not at all phased by the charm offensive after so long around Damon. “Let me say, it was quite the surprise when they told me that everyone had the devil himself all wrong.”

“Yet you don’t seem to have trouble believing it,” Lucifer said, trying to get a better read on both hers and the rest of the family’s opinions. 

She shrugged. “We’re vampires. According to popular opinion we’re bloodthirsty monsters. We know werewolves and witches and so on. We’re used to humans having funny ideas that aren’t at all true.” 

“That makes sense,” Chloe nodded. “So what exactly is involved in ‘curing’ him?” she asked worriedly, not liking the setup of that dungeon at all. 

“Well there’s no cure for the overall condition. It’s just a matter of getting him out of this ‘psychotic break’ so to speak,” Jenna answered first. 

“And that is not an easy or a pleasant process,” Elena said with a heavy sigh. 

“How does it work?” Lucifer asked as he sipped his drink, needing more information than that. 

“Are you sure you want us to explain it right now?” Damon cut his eyes to Chloe before looking back at Lucifer. He didn’t think the devil would shy away from it but it was a bit much for a human. 

“Yes. We do,” Chloe said firmly. 

When Lucifer just shrugged and motioned for them to go on, Damon said, “The first step is drying him out. It involves starving him until most of the human blood is out of his system and then keeping him functioning with animal blood until the rest of it passes.”

“If you can drink animal blood, then why…” Chloe trailed off, knowing that they would get what she was asking and unable to believe that particular sentence just passed her lips in the first place. 

“Because it’s not healthy or pleasant,” Elena told her. “Not only does it have the most disgusting taste imaginable, but it makes us weak and vulnerable.”

“It keeps us functioning though, which is the important thing. Otherwise his body would desiccate until he got more blood which is a last resort, but still one we’d like to avoid if possible,” Damon added.

“You would do that to your brother?” Chloe asked disgustedly. 

“Only if we had to. Desiccation is generally used as a time-out of sorts for vampires when they lose control of their faculties. It’s usually only for a decade or two and when they’re woken up they’re usually much more agreeable.” 

“Okay, so assuming you don’t have to go that far, you said drying him out was just the first step,” Lucifer tried to get them back on track. 

“Then comes the hard part,” Elena told them. “Getting his humanity back.”

“Yes, something was mentioned about turning off humanity. What is that?” Lucifer asked. 

“See for vampires, emotions, among other things, are greatly enhanced. When they get to be too much, we have the ability to turn them off. Most vampires who do that, never turn them back on because once they’re off it’s so much easier,” Jeremy told them. 

“Being what we are, and the way we have to survive, it’s not easy to live with when the guilt and compassion and empathy are magnified as much as they are. Most vampires never try to find a way to survive without killing, so it just makes it worse,” Elena added. 

“That makes sense,” Lucifer nodded, trying to see it from that point of view.

“So once it’s off they never want it back?” Chloe guessed. 

“Pretty much. Because once it’s off, there’s nothing stopping you from killing to your heart’s content. You just don’t care anymore. Then once it’s back, all that guilt and remorse hits you all at once like a freight train. Not just everything you pushed away by turning it off, but everything else you did while it was off too. It’s not worth it to most vampires,” Elena explained. 

“So when vampires don’t have their humanity, they kill people like he has been for the last few days,” Chloe figured out. 

“No. Not exactly,” Damon shook his head. “No vampire in their right mind would leave a trail like this. Or kill so many in so short a time. That’s a good way to get them caught and killed by hunters, werewolves, witches, or anyone else with a grudge. They usually drop no more than one body a day and rarely so close together, and then they cover it up, either by digging graves or dumping the body in water, or something else to keep it hidden and/or hide the cause of death. They also usually take people less likely to be missed. Homeless, drug addicts, people like that. Only an out of control ripper binge would cause this kind of damage.” 

“So how do you get him to turn it back on?” Lucifer brought the conversation back on track yet again. 

“There’s only one way,” Damon said with a look of pain on his face, unable to look at anyone. “Torture.” 

“Torture?!” Chloe gasped in horror. 

“We have to make being without it worse than being with it,” Damon told her. “Knowing that the only way to end the pain is to do what he’s told.” 

Lucifer didn’t like the idea much either, but he could accept it a lot easier than Chloe. “And then when he gets it back and all that guilt and remorse you mentioned crush him?” 

“That’s when the real work begins. Getting him back in one piece emotionally and helping him to move on,” Jenna said. That would be mostly her part in the process, but the others would help too. “That part can take years.”

“But once he has his humanity back, people will be safe?” Chloe asked hopefully. 

“Yes. Once he has his humanity back the very idea of hurting anyone will be abhorrent to him. Like it always is,” Elena assured her. 

“Hell, he might even force himself to stay on the animal blood after this,” Damon huffed. All that work to teach him control might just be right down the toilet. 

“If he doesn’t…Lucifer said something about more security to keep this from happening in the future? What’s your plan there?” Chloe asked. 

“We always feed in groups. Any vampire has the ability to lose control and kill someone accidentally. Most of us just don’t go off the rails afterwards. Going in groups allows us to keep each other in check,” Elena started. 

“From now on, he will be with Elena and I so we can both watch him instead of having only one person. That way if one of us gets distracted like what happened this time, the other one can still step in,” Damon told them. 

“I’m not sure that I can be trusted with Jenna either though,” Jeremy said sadly. 

Damon reached over and put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “No one is perfect, kiddo. You made a mistake. It happens. Jenna is much more controlled than Stefan in the first place since we caught her condition so much earlier. Plus, Jenna isn’t that much stronger or faster than you, so you’ll be able to stop her much easier. You’ll be fine.” 

“You’re a…what did they call it? Ripper? Too?” Lucifer asked Jenna. 

“I am. And I did kill one person on accident which is how we figured it out. But I had these guys to help me keep control right from the start so I never killed anyone else since,” Jenna admitted. 

“But Stefan didn’t have anyone to begin with?” Chloe asked, trying to ignore the casual way that this vampire just admitted to murder. 

“Well he and I were turned at the same time, but our sire left before we even completed our change, so we had no idea what was happening. We didn’t know rippers were a thing or any ways to fix it. Hell, even over a hundred and fifty years later, helping Jenna learn control was still just an experiment. When we say that rippers are rare, we mean seriously rare. And even then, most of the time, their behavior gets them caught and killed pretty early on,” Damon told them. 

“Not to mention, we are pretty odd among vampires with all of us living together. Most vampires are solitary beings. At most they travel in pairs. When they’re mates. But having an extended family unit like us, just doesn’t happen in the vampire world,” Elena explained. “And in the early stages of teaching control to a ripper, it takes at least two more vampires to pull it off. And even then, only if at least one of them is significantly older, and thus stronger.” 

“So, what? You just connect with other vampires that don’t like living alone?” Chloe asked curiously. 

“No, we were all family from the start,” Jeremy chuckled. “Damon and Stefan were brothers of course. Then Elena fell in love with Damon and convinced him to turn her so they could be together. Elena is my sister and Jenna is our aunt and we convinced them to turn us too.” 

“But why would you want to be vampires?” Chloe asked distastefully. 

“It’s not all bad,” Jenna shrugged. “The enhanced emotions also work for the good ones, and with the way we live, we have a lot more good than we do bad. We have a kind of freedom that humans never could. We can run so fast and jump so high it feels like we’re flying. We have forever to read whatever we want, to learn, to watch history unfold, to try new things and meet new people.”


	6. Chapter 6

“So how old are you all?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“Stefan and I are almost two hundred,” Damon told them. 

“I might as well be as old,” Elena chuckled before giving a brief explanation. “A spell gone wrong stuck me in Damon’s mind for almost a hundred and fifty years and I experienced his life along with him.” 

“Jenna and I are the babies. I’m just a little over thirty and she’s just over forty,” Jeremy finished. 

“How many people have you all killed?” Chloe asked. 

Damon winced. “For future reference, that’s not a very polite question to ask a vampire, but given your profession and the fact that we’re trying to make friends here, I’ll tell you that since we moved to LA fifteen years ago, I haven’t killed a single person.”

“And before that?” Chloe couldn’t stop herself from asking. 

“I’m not answering that. And you don’t want me to,” Damon said firmly. 

“I’ve only killed the one person on accident. Neither Elena nor Jeremy have ever killed anyone,” Jenna tried to move on. 

Suddenly four heads turned towards the back wall as Lucifer and Chloe looked at the confusedly. “Stefan’s awake,” Damon explained. “Excuse me.”

“We’ll all go,” Elena said gently, placing a comforting hand on Damon’s shoulder. 

“You two stay out of sight though,” Jenna told Chloe and Lucifer who nodded. 

Damon stepped in front of the door where Stefan could see him through the barred window, and Elena took a place next to him with Jenna and Jeremy staying back along with Chloe and Lucifer. “Hello brother,” Damon said sadly. 

“Brother,” Stefan sneered. “What is this?”

“This is you taking a time out, little brother. You had to know this was coming after how you’ve been acting,” Damon told him. 

“You really are playing this do-gooder role to the tee aren’t you, Damon?” Stefan said coldly. “We all know who you really are though. Except,” he took a theatrical sniff. “You have a human here. And something else. Do /they/ know how many throats you’ve ripped out? How many humans you’ve ground under your feet? How many lives you’ve snuffed out like they were nothing, because they were nothing to you, were they brother? Just nameless faceless meals.” 

Chloe had been a detective for a long time and she was very good at reading people. She could see the pain and remorse in Damon’s eyes at his brother’s words and was now sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whatever he had been in the past, he was a good man now. She didn’t even need to hear Damon’s response to know that. “You’re right, brother. I haven’t always been the best example. I’ve never handled being alone very well. But now it’s time for me to do for you what you never did for me. We’ll help you through this, little brother. And when you’re back to yourself, you’ll thank us.”

“Thank you? Ha. You think I want to go back to being a weak sentimental fool? That I want to go back to playing happy family and forget the fact that we’re predators? Humans are food, brother, and you’ll be much happier when you remember that too.”

“You don’t even know the meaning of happiness right now, Stef,” Damon said sadly. “But now that you know you’re not being held prisoner by an enemy, we’ll be back another time when you’re hopefully more reasonable.” He turned and walked out, followed by everyone else, but instead of stopping at the lounge like the other’s Damon continued out, slamming the door behind him and stormed up the stairs. 

Elena sighed sadly and turned to their guest. “It’s late. We should continue this another time. You know where we live now, and you’re welcome anytime. I need to…” she trailed off with a hand gesture before following her husband. 

Lucifer drained the last of his drink before setting the empty glass on the bar. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he told the two that were left in the room. “We’ll see you again soon.” It was almost three am by that point anyway so they all needed to go home and get some rest. 

The next day, Chloe spent the whole day working through the paperwork to close the case, not that it could actually be closed yet. She hoped the vampire group had some ideas for how she could do that without letting it go cold. She hated cold cases with a passion. Once she finished up for the day, she headed to their house, inviting Lucifer to come with her. She wasn’t quite ready to face a houseful of vampires without the devil at her side. 

Jenna opened the door before they could knock and invited them in. “Damon and Elena are out grabbing dinner right now, but they should be back soon.” 

Chloe winced as she realized what ‘grabbing dinner’ meant. “You go in shifts or something?” 

“Not usually. We just don’t want to leave the place unattended with Stefan locked up the way he is. Usually we just split up into two groups in different parts of town.”

“Why is that?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“With us only taking little bits from each person, it takes four or five people to fill us up. That’s as many as fifteen people in the three group, following someone into a blind alley. That can draw attention that we don’t want,” Jenna explained. 

“That makes sense. And you’re sure it doesn’t hurt them?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“The bite stings a bit,” Jenna shrugged. “But once we’re done we compel away any pain along with their memory, so no.” 

“Show me?” Chloe asked. 

“Do what?” Lucifer did a double take at her. 

“I’m sworn to protect the people of this city. If I’m going to just accept vampires walking around drinking their blood, I’m at the very least going to know what it feels like,” Chloe said stubbornly. 

“I…um…” Jenna said nervously. 

“I’ll do it,” Jeremy said, stepping into the room. 

“No offense, but I’d rather she did,” Chloe told him. “If she’s a ripper, I want to see how she does with control and get the worst of what any random person would experience.” 

“In that case, you might want to wait until Damon gets home,” Jeremy said despondently. 

“Jeremy…” Jenna started. 

“No, aunt Jenna,” Jeremy shook his head, making her worry more. They so rarely called her ‘aunt’ anymore that it was a big clue that they were feeling emotional. “I mean, I get what you keep saying. And what Damon and Elena keep saying. But right now…it’s been a rough few days. We’ve all been on edge and none of us have been feeding like we should. You’ll have less control than usual right now, which is why Damon was going to come out with us after he and Elena ate this time anyway until you’re back on even keel.”

Jenna sighed and nodded. She could see Jeremy’s point, but she still hated how badly he felt about the whole thing. “Okay. When Damon and Elena get back.”

“What are we doing when we get back?” Damon asked curiously as they came in, nodding at Chloe and Lucifer. 

“Jenna is going to drink my blood,” Chloe told him. 

Damon raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re sure?” When Chloe nodded, Damon shrugged. “Okay. I’ve got you covered Jen. Whenever you’re ready.” Damon moved behind her, more to make the detective more comfortable than anything else. 

Jenna stepped up to Chloe and bared her fangs before gently biting the detective’s neck, feeling her tense and she drank slowly, as she had trained herself to do so that someone would have more time to stop her if they needed to. “Jenna…” Damon said warningly as he heard the faint change in the detective’s heart rate. Jenna tore herself away and blurred to the back wall of the room, taking a few deep breaths. She had almost lost herself there. “Now, since you know about all this and volunteered, I won’t compel you to forget, but we always compel away the pain at least,” Damon explained, waiting for her nod before he looked into her eyes. “You don’t feel any pain in your neck.” 

Chloe blinked in surprise for a moment and then lifted her hand to feel that the bite marks were still there. “That’s amazing,” she said in surprise. They had been right that it hadn’t been more than a light sting in the first place, but now it didn’t feel like anything had happened at all. 

“You good, Jenna?” Elena asked. 

“Yeah. I’m good now. I guess I was hungrier and more on edge than I thought,” she chuckled. 

“Well we won’t stay long so you can go…um…eat. I just wondered if you had any thought as to how we could close this case,” Chloe asked. 

“One of us could go compel anyone you need compelled to believe that you caught the guy, he pulled a gun and you had to kill him,” Damon shrugged. 

“Or he killed himself rather than be taken alive if that would look better for you,” Elena suggested. 

“There are probably plenty of John Doe’s in the morgue that we could compel someone to think was the killer,” Jenna added her two cents. 

“That sounds like a good solution to me,” Lucifer shrugged. 

“If you want, I can go back with you and take care of that while Damon takes Jenna for dinner,” Elena offered. Chloe quickly accepted. She wanted this case off her desk ASAP.


	7. Chapter 7

The trip to the police department was relatively quick. Elena compelled a couple people that Chloe would have supposedly taken with her for the bust before they found the suspect had killed himself out of guilt. She took a few minutes to write the confession/suicide note for the police files and then a quick trip to the morgue to make one of their John Does the killer and they were done. “You’re welcome to come by the house and hang out for a while,” Elena offered. “We don’t often get the chance to make friends that won’t question our lack of aging after a while.”

“I would,” Chloe said regretfully. “But I need to get home to my daughter. I’ve barely seen her in days with all this mess.”

“I completely understand,” Elena nodded. “Offer’s always open.” 

“I wouldn’t mind taking you up on that,” Lucifer told her. He had a lot more curiosity about them left to sate. “If you wouldn’t mind swinging me by my place so I can grab a car…” he had ridden with the detective this time so he didn’t have one of his there. 

“Sure. No problem,” Elena offered, leading him to her car. 

“Personally, I’m more of a fan of the Corvette,” Lucifer said conversationally as he got into her car. “Though the Camaro is a nice one as well.”

“Yeah, Damon is a big Camaro fan. His is lovingly maintained since nineteen sixty nine,” she chuckled. “I just like the features of the newer ones.” 

“My Corvette is my main car. It’s from sixty two.”

“That was a good year for the Corvette,” Elena nodded. “Where are we going?”

“Right. Apologies. Are you familiar with the club Lux?” he asked. 

“Sure I am. That’s on our rotation of clubs that we visit. You live near there?” 

“Actually, I live there. I own Lux,” he smirked. 

“Wow, that’s awesome. I’m surprised we haven’t run into you there before,” Elena said thoughtfully. 

“I have been somewhat busy the last few years and haven’t been able to spend as much time in the club as I’d like. Particularly during the week. I’m usually there most weekends though.”

“We usually go clubbing during the week to avoid the massive crowds. While smaller crowds are good, if there are too many people it’s harder to move around and graze unnoticed,” Elena explained. 

“Graze?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“A few sips from dance partners here and there,” she shrugged as she pulled up in front of the club. 

“I see,” Lucifer said thoughtfully. “Well I won’t say anything about grazing in my club if you can promise me that there will be no…accidents on the premises. I’m more than a bit protective of my patrons.”

“You have my assurances,” Elena nodded. She knew that he knew that they were always careful, but could understand the need for it to be stated. 

“Thank you,” Lucifer said as he got out and headed for his own car. Since he knew where they lived now, she had no reason to wait for him to follow her and pulled away once he got out. 

Elena and then Lucifer got there before Damon and Jenna got back, so Elena took Lucifer on a tour of the downstairs of the house once they poured some drinks. Lucifer quickly noticed the piano in the living room and smiled. “Who plays?” he asked curiously. 

“We all do,” Elena told him. “Damon and I have been playing the longest, but we’ve all picked up a variety of instruments over the years. Most of them are upstairs in the band room, but we couldn’t resist having a piano down here too.” 

“Band room?” Lucifer asked interestedly. 

“Yeah, back when we first moved here, we started a band. It seemed like fun. We knocked out a wall between two of the rooms on the top floor and created a music studio. One side is where the band plays and the other side is where we mix the tracks and everything.” 

“Would I have heard of you?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“Probably not. We don’t go public or anything for obvious reasons. We just do it for fun. We play a few dive bars every now and then, but that’s it.”

“Does your band have a name?” 

“The Bloodsuckers,” Jeremy laughed as he came in from the pool to refill his drink. 

Lucifer let out a barking laugh at that too and shook his head as Elena said, “He chose the name.” 

“Hey, I was sixteen and an idiot,” Jeremy chuckled. “You didn’t have to take the suggestion.”

“Damon just felt bad for you because he’d already called guitar and you were so disappointed,” Elena teased. 

“Talking about the band?” Damon asked as he came in, wrapping his arms around Elena’s stomach and kissing her neck before heading to pour his own drink and one for Jenna.

“Yes. Quite the original name you have,” Lucifer joked as they headed outside to finish the tour with the pool area and enjoy the nice clear night outside. 

Once they were sitting, Jenna said, “So, I’m curious…the stories say that Lucifer was an angel first before he fell. Is that true?” 

“Yes, it is. Unfortunately, dear old dad didn’t much like the idea of free will. When I decided to go against his orders and teach the humans to think for themselves, he threw me out,” Lucifer said hatefully. 

“I can understand crappy dads,” Damon commiserated. “Mine was an abusive bastard my whole life. Plus he was a vampire hunter so if he had lived long enough to see what I became, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill me once and for all.” 

“Mine and Jeremy’s parents were vampire hunters too,” Elena added. “But they were great to us. I don’t like to think of what they would think about us now. They died in a car accident about a year before I turned and two years before Jeremy did.”

“So you all come from vampire hunting families,” Lucifer realized. “That’s an interesting turn of events.” He wondered if that had something to do with their more peaceful lifestyle, but knew that it would be rude to ask. “I find it odd that I never knew that vampires existed. Or werewolves. And I haven’t seen a witch come through hell since not long after the beginning.”

“Vampires have only been around for about a little over a thousand years. Not sure how long werewolves have been around but I don’t think it’s been much longer,” Damon shrugged. 

“Apparently a witch a few thousand years ago created a place called ‘the other side’ to trap supernatural souls so they wouldn’t have gone through hell since then. And then another witch created vampires a little over a thousand years ago trying to protect her kids from being killed, but since it went against the natural order of things, it was twisted into a curse and could be passed on. I wouldn’t be surprised if werewolves came about the same way,” Elena explained. Most of that they had learned from Bonnie and Stefan due to the whole original vampire mess they’d gotten mixed up in. Some had come from Talia’s research into their past and origins. 

“That would explain it,” Lucifer nodded. 

“What kind of abilities do you have?” Jeremy asked. Since he knew so much about theirs it was only a fair question. 

“In addition to my devil form, I also still have my wings, so I can fly. And traverse dimensions which allows me to do what you would consider teleport here on earth as well,” Lucifer told them. 

“Dimensions like…hell?” 

“And heaven if I wasn’t locked out. Possibly even this ‘other side’ if I could figure out how to get there,” Lucifer told them. “I’m also much stronger than humans. Not sure how it would stack up to your strength though…”

“Easy way to find out,” Damon smirked, moving a table between them and putting his elbow on the table and holding his hand up in the classic arm wrestling position. Lucifer chuckled and shrugged before taking the challenge, wrenching Damon’s arm down like it was nothing. “Okay…ow?” Damon said massaging his arm. 

“So stronger than vampires too,” Lucifer laughed. 

“We’re still faster,” Damon said in what was absolutely /not/ a pout. “And our senses are better.”

“And I can teleport and travel to other dimensions. And I’m /truly/ immortal, not just mostly,” Lucifer countered, not really caring so much about the competition per se, but finding it more amusing than anything. 

“Yeah, yeah. We all have our perks. The dick measuring contest isn’t necessary,” Elena rolled her eyes amusedly. 

“You’re no fun,” Damon pouted playfully at her. 

“I bet flying is awesome,” Jeremy chimed in, wanting to get back to that part. “Sometimes when we run and jump fast enough it almost feels like we’re flying, but to /actually/ be able to fly…”

Lucifer shrugged. It was so commonplace to him that it didn’t really mean much. “I find it fascinating how you’re able to move so fast and still apparently perceive things at those speeds.” From there the conversation evolved further into the differences and similarities, though none of the vampires mentioned any of their weaknesses, just that they existed. They didn’t trust the devil /that/ much yet. It was nearly midnight by the time they noticed the time and Lucifer headed home.


	8. Chapter 8

A couple days later, Friday, Chloe was cornered by Dan and Ella as she was getting ready to leave and dragged up to Ella’s lab. “Okay we’ve been waiting for you to come clean, but we can’t wait anymore, so come on. What happened?” Ella asked impatiently. 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked confused. 

“Oh come on Chlo. The whole wrap up to the serial killer thing reeks of cover-up,” Dan rolled his eyes. “Now that we’re in on the whole celestial secrets thing we’re not supposed to be out of the loop anymore.”

“There are other people with secrets too and I can’t just spill their secrets without their permission,” Chloe tried to make them understand. 

“Well they’ll just have to understand that we’ve proven that we can keep secrets and handle all this craziness and we don’t appreciate being kept out of the loop when it involves something this serious,” Dan said firmly. 

Chloe sighed heavily, seeing their point. “You’re still getting Trix this weekend?” Chloe asked Dan who nodded. “Then I’ll see what I can do about getting them to let you in on that secret too. Good enough?” 

“For now,” Ella nodded. 

Chloe called Lucifer on her way home and let him know where things stood. This time she wanted him to go with her less for protection and more to help her convince the vampires that Dan and Ella could be trusted. She knew that Lucifer had spent a lot more time getting to know them than she had and that he was starting to consider them friends. She just hoped that sentiment went both ways. 

Once Dan picked Trixie up about an hour later, she headed for the vampire’s house to see that Lucifer had beaten her there. She heard the music even as Jeremy opened the door for her. She walked into the living room to find Damon and Lucifer ‘dueling’ on the piano and clearly having fun with it. They stopped not long after she came in and moved to the more comfortable seating with everyone else. “So what is it you need to talk to us about?” Jenna asked curiously. 

“Well, I’m not sure if you know this, but there are two other people at the police department that are in on the whole angels and devil secret…” Chloe told them. 

“Lucifer mentioned something about that, yes,” Damon said carefully. 

“Well they spotted the cover-up since they know what to look for and they want to know what’s going on,” Chloe finished. 

“And you think they can be trusted with this?” Elena asked. 

“Yeah. I do,” Chloe nodded. 

“Lucifer?” Damon asked, much more willing to accept his opinion. 

“I agree,” Lucifer told them. “They have helped us cover up for celestial issues in the past. They have proven that they can handle the depth of the secrets and keep them.” 

Everyone looked to Damon for the final decision. They all knew that he would be the hard sell. Damon considered it for a moment before deciding, “Fine. But we do it here, on our turf. And we reserve the right to modify their memories if they take it badly.” 

“Fair enough,” Chloe agreed. She at least trusted them enough not to hurt either of them, if only because Lucifer would never accept it and they couldn’t modify his memories of it. “As long as Lucifer is here too.” 

“We’re cool with that,” Jeremy chimed in before anyone could say anything else, not that anyone else would have disagreed. They all liked Lucifer and it wasn’t like any secrets would be thrown around that he didn’t already know. They agreed to bring them by Monday after work, and the vampires agreed to have dinner early that day so they would all be home. 

This time, since she didn’t have to get home to Trixie, Chloe hung around for a while too and got to know them all a bit better. She could see why Lucifer liked them so much. They were pretty likable people. When they mentioned some of the events that they used to go to in their hometown, fancy balls and the like, she started to get the impression that they were the kind of people that could fit into any situation seamlessly. 

Jenna and Jeremy teased Damon and Elena about some dance they had done at one of these events and conned them into demonstrating. Lucifer offered to man the piano once he was told what piece to play, but before they started, Jeremy said, “No, no, no. You have to do the whole thing. Elena go upstairs. I’ll play the announcer.” 

Elena groaned. “Oh come on, Jer. Really?” 

“Yep,” Jeremy grinned. 

“Hey at least he’s not trying to get you to change clothes,” Jenna laughed. She could get behind this too. She hadn’t fully been able to appreciate it the first time with everything else that had been going on. 

“Fine,” she huffed and Damon let out a chuckle. He wasn’t going to argue against recreating the moment that he fell in love with her and he had missed this kind of dancing. He made a mental note to do more of it and maybe even see if he could find someplace in LA they could do it. 

Jeremy took his place at the bottom of the stairs and pretended to have a microphone as he said in an exaggerated announcer’s voice, “Ms. Elena Gilbert escorted by Mr. Damon Salvatore.” 

Elena rolled her eyes and came down the stairs with perfect grace despite the fact that she was wearing jeans and a casual blouse. When she reached the bottom, a grinning Damon held out his hand and they did the same almost spin into position as he led her gracefully towards the open area in the living room where they usually danced. Jenna cued Lucifer for the music and Damon bowed as Elena curtsied before beginning the familiar dance, including the ‘near touch’ portion at the beginning. 

Chloe watched with a smile. She could see how much they loved each other, and the dance was beautiful. They were very talented. She had once dreamed of going to fancy balls like that, but that was a long time ago. To think that her new friends had lived that kind of life was so foreign to her. Once the dance was over Damon and Elena returned to their seats to playful applause. “Do you ever miss it?” she asked them. 

“Yes, actually,” Damon admitted. “Those events could be a little stuffy, but they were still a lot of fun.”

“Stefan always hated them,” Elena chuckled. 

“Stefan never liked dancing much either though,” Damon pointed out. 

“I’m with Stefan on that one,” Jeremy said. “I never really got into it. I do miss them though, weirdly enough.”

“I always loved them, but then I was only a founding family by marriage so I didn’t grow up with them like the rest of you did,” Jenna chimed in. 

“Perhaps one day I’ll throw an event like that,” Lucifer said thoughtfully. He hadn’t thought that anyone actually appreciated that sort of thing in this day and age, but it was something to think about. 

“That would be fun,” Elena grinned at him. 

“Well as much as I would love to stay and chat some more, it’s getting late,” Chloe said, looking at her watch and realizing that it was after nine. While she had no problem with a night out at a club or something going late, just sitting around chatting wasn’t really enough excitement to keep her awake. Not to mention it had been a long day at work. Lucifer still stuck around for a few more hours though and when he left it was with an invitation to Lux the next night for some fun. Since they were still making sure that at least one person stayed home at all times with Stefan locked up, Damon and Elena were the only ones that agreed to go. They usually took at least one or two nights a week as a couple anyway. 

The next night, Damon and Elena waited until Jeremy and Jenna got back from their dinner before they left. Jeremy had finally gotten comfortable with taking Jenna by himself again, thankfully, so Damon and Elena had time to get all dolled up before they got home. Damon had decided against a tux and instead was wearing a nice black suit with a dark blue button up shirt that left the top few buttons undone while Elena was wearing a tight dress that was so dark of a blue that it was almost black and seemed to shimmer when she moved. It fell to the floor but had a slit up to mid-thigh and she had a pair of matching strappy heels. They both knew that Lux was upscale enough to get away with fancier dress which was why it was on their usual club rotation anyway. They all loved getting dressed up sometimes.


	9. Chapter 9

When they got to the club, Damon huffed a bit at the line before deciding to skip it with a bit of compulsion to the bouncer and they slipped inside, heading straight for the bar. No sooner than they had ordered their first drinks, Lucifer popped up. “They’re on the free drinks list,” he told the bartender as she handed over their drinks, and one for Lucifer since she’d seen him coming. 

“Much appreciated,” Damon raised his glass in thanks. 

“Not much point owning the club if my friends can’t get free drinks here, is there,” Lucifer chuckled. “Glad you could make it. And if you want something a little stronger than alcohol, just let me know.” 

“We’ll definitely keep that in mind,” Elena told him. While they didn’t do drugs all the time, it was a nice change sometimes to chase the high that their metabolisms never let them hold for long. That wouldn’t be until after their hunger was sated though, of course. 

About that time, a woman came up to Lucifer and ran a hand down his cheek to his chest and he hummed appreciatively. “Enjoy,” Lucifer told Damon and Elena before letting the woman drag him to the dance floor. 

Damon tossed back the rest of his drink, prompting Elena to do the same before Damon held out his hand to her. “Shall we dance?” 

“We shall,” she grinned, giving a slight curtsey and they headed to the dance floor. They danced together for the first few songs before splitting up to graze, coming back to each other every three or four songs in a well-practiced routine. 

It was about an hour in, when Elena bumped into Lucifer while looking for a new dance partner and he held out a hand in invitation with a cocked eyebrow, as he said amusedly, “As long as the biting isn’t the price for the dance?” 

Elena laughed and shook her head as she took his hand and they started to dance. Lucifer usually avoided dancing with married women so as not to inflame any tempers. At least while their husbands were present too. He had seen how both Elena and Damon had been dancing with everyone else though so assumed that they were secure enough in their relationship that it wouldn’t matter. 

The song was almost over when Damon noticed that Elena was dancing with someone that wasn’t about to become a meal and he made his way over with a smirk and joined the dance, grinding up behind his wife as she ground against the devil. Lucifer chuckled at that and reached around, grabbing Damon’s hips and pulling all three of them closer together and Damon didn’t mind a bit. They danced like that over the course of a few songs, with Elena turning around every so often to face her other dance partner, but eventually she needed to sit for a bit. Even as a vampire, she couldn’t dance forever on heels. She slipped out from between them and said, “I need a drink break. You two have fun,” with a cheeky wink. 

Lucifer raised an eyebrow in question at Damon who just shrugged and got right back into the dance with Lucifer for a few more songs before the devil moved on to other partners and Damon went to find his wife who already had another drink for him waiting at the booth she was sitting at. “Having fun?” Damon teased her. 

“Oh yeah. You two were hot together,” she laughed. This was far from the first time Damon had spent some time dancing with a hot guy and she said the same thing every time. Just as he did whenever she danced with other women.

“You were hot dancing with that little blonde earlier too,” Damon said nibbling her ear as she leaned against his side. 

“I thought you would appreciate that,” Elena chuckled. They had turned teasing each other into an art form though naturally, neither of them crossed any lines on or off the dance floor. Vampires were just a very sexual species. Just because they stayed faithful to each other didn’t mean that they couldn’t have fun in their dancing. After about a twenty minute break they hit the dance floor again together for a while and then split up again. They were both surprised when the music suddenly stopped but when the spotlight shone on the piano and Lucifer stepped up they figured out what was going on and they found a seat to listen, greatly enjoying his song. 

Lucifer came over to them after and said, “If you want to play a song at some point just let me know.”

“Not tonight, I don’t think,” Elena shook her head. “Maybe next time.” She would prefer to actually plan something rather than winging it. 

“We will take a little of that, stronger than alcohol you mentioned though,” Damon said hopefully. 

“Come on then. I keep the good stuff upstairs,” Lucifer told them, leading them to the elevator. 

Once the doors opened at the top, Damon and Elena couldn’t get off the elevator. “Umm…Lucifer? You kinda have to invite us in?” Elena laughed as she kicked the invisible barrier at the open doors. 

“Oh. Right. Come in,” Lucifer laughed. 

Damon whistled when he got a look at the place. “Nice digs.”

“Thank you. I am rather fond of them. Care for a quick tour?” It really was quick since Lucifer didn’t have much in the way of doors. The only doors were to the two balconies, the one off his bedroom that led to the hot tub/swimming pool and the one off the living room with the seating area. Once that was done they headed back to the upstairs bar for a few lines before heading back down to the club. 

Over the course of the night there was a lot more dancing, most of the time, Damon and Elena danced with each other, but they split up to dance with random people still quite a bit and they both even had a few more dances with Lucifer too. Damon and Elena didn’t leave until last call when they slipped out before the crowd. Lucifer had disappeared upstairs with a few people about an hour before. All in all it was little different than most of their nights out, but having another friend there that they could cut loose with made it just a bit more fun. It wasn’t like they could dirty dance with Jenna or Jeremy or even Stefan. The fact that they were family just made it too weird. 

They were both glad that they’d gotten the night to cut loose though since it was time to start on the next stage of getting Stefan back the next day. He had been on animal blood for a few days now and all the human blood should be out of his system. Once he was back to normal, they would start working his human blood tolerance back up again, but as long as his humanity was off, he couldn’t be trusted with it. They all hoped that it would make this part of the process easier. 

Damon was the only one who could stomach this part, but Elena forced herself to be by his side to support him anyway. It still wasn’t easy for him, after all. It took all four of them to get him into the chair and restrained though, but once that was done, Jenna and Jeremy left. “You know what comes next don’t you brother?” Damon asked. 

“You get to live out your lifelong dream and torture me?” Stefan sneered. 

“Believe me, little brother. I will get no pleasure from this,” Damon sighed sadly. 

“Oh is this the part where you tell me that it hurts you more than it hurts me?” Stefan mocked. 

“You could always make it easy on both of us and just turn your humanity back on now,” Damon said hopefully. 

Stefan laughed cruelly. “You’ll break before I do, brother, and you know it.” 

Damon just shook his head sadly and went to remove his brother’s daylight ring. It ended up being a fight that Elena had to help with and involved breaking three of Stefan’s fingers, but they got it and Elena put it in her pocket for the time being as Damon moved back to the small barred window behind the chair. “Last chance to stop this, Stefan.” When Stefan didn’t say anything, Damon pulled back the curtain, and both he and Elena winced at Stefan’s screams as his skin blistered and burned. He didn’t leave it for long before he dropped the curtain back into place. 

“Is that all you got?” Stefan snapped weakly. Damon just waited until he was healed before pulling it back again for longer this time, letting it go until the first flash of fire erupted on Stefan’s arm before he dropped it and waited for his brother to heal again. They did it three more times before Stefan started healing slower and they knew he couldn’t take much more today. 

“We’ll give you some time to think it over, little brother,” Damon told him before he and Elena left the room and neither of them bothered with a glass as they just grabbed their respective favorite bottles. Bourbon for Damon and Tequila for Elena. Neither Jenna nor Jeremy questioned when they didn’t come out and came and sat with them in silence for a little while around midafternoon before they went back for another round. This time they brought a small cup of animal blood with them. That was all he would get per day until he turned his humanity back on. They knew from their time with the Augustines that it would be enough to keep him functioning.


	10. Chapter 10

The first day was always the worst, so by the time Monday rolled around they were feeling a little bit better. Enough to stomach the company at least. Jenna and Jeremy went for dinner first that night while Damon and Elena were working on Stefan. Between Stefan and their nerves over bringing other humans in on the secret, they took the time while Damon and Elena were hunting to try and unwind with their hobbies. Jenna was the tech guru of the family and had been working on building a new computer while Jeremy was the mechanical one. While Damon dabbled and the two of them could often be seen leaning over the hood of the car, Jeremy was the one who got deep into it. He had been rebuilding the engine on his classic motorcycle lately. 

Lucifer and Chloe had ridden together as had Dan and Ella. They didn’t want to all pile in one car. It had been a bit of a hard sell to get Dan and Ella out here for the whole reveal, but they had pulled the, ‘they insist on meeting you first so this is the only way you’ll know’ card. As they got out of Dan’s car, they both gaped at the gorgeous mansion. Chloe rolled her eyes, trying not to think of the fact that she must have looked about the same the first time she was here. “Come on.”

“Are all secret celestials rich?” Ella asked in awe. No one was sure how to answer that, so they didn’t bother as they walked up to the door. 

Jenna and Jeremy were so involved in their own things that they lost track of time until Jenna heard a car drive up and it didn’t sound like Damon’s. She dropped her tools and raced downstairs to get the door. “Oh. You’re early,” she told them as she opened the door to let them in. “One sec,” she moved to the garage. “Jer! Company’s here!” He hadn’t heard anything over the sound of his tools. She turned back to their guests and said, “Damon and Elena should be back any minute. In the meantime, why don’t we head to the living room.” 

“You have a beautiful home,” Ella told her. 

“Thank you,” Jenna said with a smile. “Would anyone like a drink.” When Lucifer opened his mouth to speak, Jenna cut him off amusedly. “I know /you/ do.” She was already pouring him a scotch which they’d figured out was his favorite. 

Dan and Ella both relaxed quite a bit at the evidence that Lucifer knew them well and clearly liked them if he spent enough time with them to know that. “Do you have beer?” Dan asked. 

“Rum and coke?” Ella asked hopefully. 

“I’ll just have some water,” Chloe chuckled. 

“Coming right up,” Jenna told them as Jeremy came in covered in grease. “Jeremy! You knew we were having company.”

“Sorry, Jenna,” Jeremy said sheepishly. “I meant to have time to clean up first, but I lost track of time.” 

“Just…at least wash your hands before you get grease everywhere would you?” she huffed, making the group laugh. 

“You’re never going to grow up, are you,” Elena rolled her eyes as she came in, followed by Damon. Jenna handed out the drinks for the guests while Damon went to pour one for him and Elena, Jeremy grabbed a beer once his hands were clean and Jenna had a screwdriver for herself. “Have we missed the introductions?” Elena asked. 

“Not yet,” Lucifer told her. “This is Daniel and Ella,” he introduced them. “And this is Damon, his wife Elena, her brother Jeremy, and their aunt Jenna. They’re vampires.” 

“No way!” Ella said with wide eyes. 

“Vampires are real?!” Dan said in much the same state as Ella. 

“That we are,” Damon said, sitting back in the armchair nervously, sipping his drink as Elena perched on the arm of it, leaning against him. 

“So…it was a vampire that killed all those people?” Ella realized. “That explains the lack of blood. And I guess the heads ripping off. I’m assuming since Chloe and Lucifer seem to like you that you weren’t behind it, but you helped catch the vampire who was?” 

“Sort of,” Jeremy said with a shrug. 

“See there’s this rare condition in vampires. In certain circumstances it can cause what you might equate to a psychotic break,” Jenna explained. 

“So…the vampire who did it isn’t a bad guy?” Dan asked incredulously. 

“He happens to be my brother,” Damon said irritated. “He’s currently in lockdown until we get him back in his right mind.”

“And we’re just letting it go at that?” Dan asked. 

“What else can we do, Dan?” Chloe asked, putting it the same way Lucifer had to her. “It’s not like we can put him in prison or in a hospital. If we could even hold him it would just make it worse and everyone there would end up the same way. The only other option would be to kill him and I don’t like the idea of killing someone just because they’re sick, do you?” 

“Well…no…but…what if it happens again?” Dan asked. 

“He’s kinda got a point there,” Ella said reluctantly. 

“It won’t,” Damon said seriously. “We got lazy. We didn’t notice that he was headed for a break and didn’t have enough security on him. We won’t make that mistake again.” 

“This is all really experimental in the first place,” Elena explained. “Until about fifteen years ago, no one thought that rippers could be controlled at all. Usually they’re just put down. That’s not an option for us. Stefan is family. Now that we know what to watch out for, we’ll be better prepared.” 

“What caused it?” Ella asked, willing to accept the assurances. 

“Human blood is like a drug to rippers. Until the last ten years, he got around it by drinking animal blood, but that’s not really healthy and it kept him sick and weak. Once we learned with another ripper that he could learn control on human blood we set about teaching him. He’s been doing well for so many years that we stopped watching as closely. His emotions had been on edge for a while due to a lot of personal stuff going on, which was a warning sign we didn’t see,” Damon told them. 

“One thing you have to understand about Stefan, is that he’s probably the most sensitive vampire you’ll ever meet. He feels so much guilt and pain for every person he kills that once he loses control, that guilt crushes him and he turns off his humanity to escape it. That’s when the spree starts,” Jenna added. 

“So when you say he’s locked down…” Dan asked. 

“He’s in a cell and restrained until we can force him to turn his humanity back on and then help him get past the guilt so he doesn’t kill himself,” Elena said. 

“How would you go about that? Getting him to turn his humanity back on?” Ella asked. “I mean, if it was me and I knew what was coming once I did…”

“That’s the hardest part. The only way to do it is to make it seem like the better option,” Jeremy said sadly. 

“What do you mean?” Dan asked confused. 

“You don’t want to know,” Chloe told him. She wished that she didn’t. 

“You mean…oh!” Ella gasped, covering her mouth. She could see the look in all their eyes how much it tore them apart and the only thing she could think of that fit was torture. 

“Speaking of…have you hit that phase yet?” Lucifer asked. 

“Yesterday,” Damon nodded. 

“I know someone who might be able to help,” Lucifer offered. “Hell’s best torturer happens to be here on earth at the moment.”

“I don’t know…” Damon said worriedly. He didn’t like torturing his brother at all, but letting someone else do it seemed even worse. 

“I do understand that he’s your brother, but I assure you, she will speed up the process exponentially and it will save him more prolonged pain,” Lucifer tried to reason. 

“He does have a point,” Elena admitted, biting her lip in indecision. 

“She won’t kill him?” Damon asked suspiciously. 

“Absolutely not. It’s a point of pride for her that no one dies until or unless she wants them to,” Lucifer assured them. 

“The sooner we can get him back the sooner we can start to fix him,” Jenna jumped on board. 

“Okay. But if he dies, so will she,” Damon said firmly. 

“Understood,” Lucifer nodded. He wasn’t even sure if they would be able to kill her or not, but it wouldn’t come up anyway. 

“I’ll ask her to come by tomorrow?” Chloe asked. 

“Morning if possible,” Damon nodded. 

“Sure. I’ll call you if she can’t make it,” Chloe agreed. 

“I’ll come with her too,” Lucifer offered, glad when that made Damon relax quite a bit and Damon gave him a grateful nod. 

“So since that’s settled…vampires huh?” Ella asked, trying to change the subject.


	11. Chapter 11

“Yeah, you said you have to drink human blood…” Dan said distastefully. 

“We do, but we don’t hurt anyone,” Jeremy told him. 

“Snatch, eat, erase, we call it,” Damon chimed in. 

“We just get people alone, drink a little bit, make them forget what happened and take the pain away,” Jeremy said. 

“They’ve done it to me,” Chloe told him. “Not the forgetting it happened part, but the rest. It just stung a little bit with the bite and then the pain was gone, like it was never there. I didn’t even get dizzy or anything.” 

“Because we drink slower. If we drink too fast you’ll get a little dizzy. It’s also harder to notice when we need to stop without causing problems if we go too fast too,” Jenna explained. 

“How do you know when to stop?” Ella asked curiously. 

“Our senses are much more enhanced than humans. There is a slight stutter in the heartbeat once it starts trying to compensate for the blood loss. It’s also how we can make sure that someone is healthy enough to not cause problems by losing a little blood,” Damon told them. 

“You can’t just drink donated blood?” Dan asked, more accepting of the facts, but still wanting to make sure there isn’t another way around it. 

“We can drink from blood bags, yes,” Elena told them. “But it’s kinda like eating cold stale leftovers. We keep some on hand for emergencies, but also too much going missing from blood banks brings unwanted attention.” 

“That makes sense,” Ella nodded. 

“What about people volunteering?” Dan asked. 

“That would involve letting too many humans in on the secret which is a very bad idea,” Damon told him. “Consider the fact that in order to not harm them it takes four or five people per day to keep one vampire fed. Drinking from the same people more than once a week can cause health problems, so that’s up to thirty five people per vampire that would have to be in on the secret. That’s a hundred and seventy five people just for our family.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t work,” Dan cringed. 

“We do the best we can to survive without hurting anyone. Can’t that be enough?” Jeremy asked. 

“No, I get it,” Dan said with a sigh. “I was just hoping there was another way is all.”

“If there were another way, we would use it,” Jenna told them. “Everyone and everything needs to eat.”

“Vampires are a predatory species. It’s in our nature. Some of us just find ways to channel that which don’t involve killing people. That’s the best you’re gonna get,” Damon said firmly. The ‘take it or leave it’ was implied with his tone. 

“I can live with that,” Dan agreed. 

“How many vampires are there?” Ella asked curiously. 

“We don’t exactly have a census,” Damon snorted amusedly. 

“At least thousands. Maybe tens or hundreds of thousands. There’s no telling,” Elena shrugged. 

“Most vampires are solitary,” Jenna chimed in. “The only time you’ll usually find more than one vampire in one place is if they’re mates. They also tend to be territorial, though not as bad as werewolves,” she chuckled. 

“Wait…werewolves are real too?” Ella asked excitedly. 

“And witches,” Lucifer told her. 

“And all three factions have been in various stages of war with each other for as long as they’ve existed,” Damon told them. 

“With a few exceptions,” Elena added. “We have some friends that are witches. Since we function without hurting people, witches aren’t as hostile to us.” 

“So witches are good then?” Dan asked curiously. 

“Most of them. Just like most vampires are bad,” Jeremy said. 

“But you’re not. Are there others like you?” Ella asked. 

“Probably,” Elena shrugged. “We’ve only ever met one, but I’m sure there are others.”

“Obviously, vampires don’t socialize with each other much,” Damon chuckled. 

“How many other vampires have you met total?” Chloe asked. 

“Well Stefan and I are much older than the others. There was the one who turned us, the good one we mentioned, Lexi…”

“Her boyfriend,” Elena pointed out. 

“Anna. She was good too,” Jeremy jumped in. 

“I don’t know if I’d call her good,” Damon shrugged. 

“I would,” Jeremy said irritated. 

“She was your girlfriend,” Elena pointed out. “You’re biased. But I agree that she wasn’t as bad as most.” 

“She just wanted her mother back,” Jeremy defended her. 

“We’re getting off track here,” Jenna derailed the argument that occasionally came up. 

“Right. Sorry…then there were all the tombed vampires,” Elena remembered. 

“But they don’t really count,” Damon told her. “We accidentally woke them up. It’s not like we met them in passing.” 

“True,” Elena conceded the point. “So for meeting in passing, just the four then?” 

“Oh and Elijah,” Damon added. 

“Right. So five,” Elena nodded. She wasn’t going to bring up Enzo and she knew that Damon didn’t want to think about him either, so that was it. 

“And you’re all how old?” Ella asked. 

“Stefan and I, and sort of Elena are pushing two hundred. The rest are all under fifty,” Damon told her which led to the basic spell gone wrong explanation for Elena’s age. 

“Since we’ve moved on to the polite chat part of things, I’m gonna head upstairs and clean up real quick,” Jeremy said before blurring up the stairs. 

“Okay, now /that/ is cool,” Ella said blinking at where he sped off too. Neither Dan nor Chloe, who hadn’t seen that yet, could deny that statement. By the time Jeremy came back down, the group were chatting like old friends, and Ella took the opportunity to ask him, “Where’d the grease come from?” 

“Oh I’ve been working on rebuilding my bike,” Jeremy said with a shrug. 

“Awesome. What kind?” she did love her bikes. 

“A sixty eight Bonneville,” Jeremy told her. 

“Show me?” she asked excitedly. 

“Sure,” Jeremy shrugged. “Come on. It’s in the garage.” She bounded happily after him as everyone else shook their heads amusedly. 

“We should probably get going pretty soon though,” Chloe said. They had work in the morning. 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Dan nodded. 

“If you’d like to ride back with Daniel, I can make sure Ms. Lopez gets home,” Lucifer offered. 

“Do you mind, Dan?” Chloe asked. He easily agreed and they headed out as Jenna got up to refill everyone else’s drinks and conversation with Lucifer soon turned to the familiar. 

It was about twenty minutes later when the vampires in the house heard the conversation from the garage change from engine designs and specs to something that couldn’t even be called a conversation and Damon snorted in amusement. “I hope you didn’t have plans for tonight. You might be here for a while.” 

“Oh?” Lucifer asked with a twitch of his lips, easily figuring out what was going on from the looks ranging from amused to non-chalant on the vampire’s faces. “Good for her. And no. I had no plans. I didn’t know how long this was going to take.” 

“Since you’ll be coming back in the morning with your demon friend, if she ends up staying you’re welcome to also,” Elena told Lucifer. 

“I may take you up on that,” Lucifer smiled. It wasn’t the sort of invitation he was used to without sex attached to the offer. That was what most people wanted from him, but one of the things that he enjoyed about these vampires was that they were apparently immune to his aura. 

Ella did end up staying after Jeremy offered to drive her to work in the morning, so Lucifer stayed as well in the guest room which was almost as lavish as his room in his penthouse, though obviously much more plain. Morning found Lucifer cooking up breakfast for himself and Ella, along with enough for the vampires if they chose to eat it. He knew that they didn’t often eat human food, but that it was as much because none of them liked to cook as anything else. They did all end up having some, and not long after Jeremy rushed out to drive Ella to work, Maze walked in the front door like she owned the place, never having been big on knocking. 

“Okay. Where’s the guy you need me to torture?” she asked. 

“Mazikeen, I presume?” Damon asked with a raised eyebrow, not really phased by her rudeness but fully intending to lay down some ground rules. When she nodded, he got the impression that she wasn’t much for social niceties, so he got straight to the point. “First some rules. You don’t use anything wood do you?” 

“No. Everything I use is metal,” she told him. 

“Okay. Good. Because no wood is allowed. You can’t hurt his heart or his brain. Sunlight will kill him right now, so no sunlight,” Damon told her. He didn’t trust the demon to know where the line was regarding the sun. “Most importantly he can’t die and you can only keep going until he turns his humanity back on.”

“How will I know when that is?” she asked incredulously. 

“He’ll tell you and then you come get one of us to check and make sure,” Damon told her. 

“I can live with that. So keep going until he agrees to turn his humanity back on and I can’t kill him,” she said to confirm. “Any other information you want from him?” 

“Nope. Just his humanity back,” Damon told her. He had no intention of being in the room. As long as Lucifer vouched for her. He could barely stomach the light torture that he gave his brother. He couldn’t watch whatever she planned to do. Hearing it would be bad enough. Now that everything was settled, he led her back to the cell area and unlocked and unbolted the door.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hello brother. Brought me a snack have you? It doesn’t smell human,” Stefan said once they stepped inside. 

“She’s a demon actually. On loan from hell. She’s agreed to take over. Unless you want to save us all the trouble and just turn your humanity back on now,” Damon desperately hoped that his brother would take him up on it this time. He could see the nerves spring to life in Stefan’s eyes, but could also see the moment he decided against it. 

“Like I’m supposed to believe that. Let her do her worst,” he snapped. 

“Well I’ll leave you to it, then,” Damon said stiffly before walking out. 

“I was really hoping you would say that,” Maze grinned savagely. “This is gonna be fun.” 

Damon joined Elena and Lucifer in the lounge as Elena handed him a drink. They knew he wouldn’t want to go far. Jenna had disappeared up to the fully insulated music room. She couldn’t even stand hearing it. Jeremy would likely join her when he got home too. Damon just couldn’t leave his brother completely alone with this and Elena wouldn’t leave his side. Lucifer had seen and heard much worse in Hell, not to mention he couldn’t really hear much anyway and Damon felt better with Lucifer close enough to Maze to interfere if needed. 

They were just finishing with their first drinks when Maze came storming out with her hand over her neck, blood dripping between her fingers. “That little bastard bit me!” she snapped. 

“Well, yes Mazikeen. He is a vampire. I know the detective warned you of that,” Lucifer said amusedly. 

“You’re leaving?” Damon asked, seeing her continuing towards the door. 

“Not hardly. We’re just getting started. I just need different tools if I have to work from a distance,” she huffed as she stormed out of the room, returning about five minutes later with a bigger bag. 

“Demon blood won’t hurt him will it?” Elena asked worriedly. 

“I don’t honestly know,” Lucifer shrugged. “If it did what would the signs be?” 

“Struggling to breathe, probably blistering or burning on his skin, anything else would be fairly obvious,” Damon shrugged. 

“I’ll go check then,” Lucifer offered, not about to send the man’s brother or sister in law in there while Maze was torturing him. He returned a few minutes later. “He’s fine…well…not fine, but…”

“I get what you mean,” Damon cut him off. “Thanks for checking.” They sat there at the bar all day, going through quite a bit of alcohol. They didn’t even realize the time until Chloe got there. 

She still wanted to talk to Stefan as soon as he was back and she had plenty of faith in Maze’s skills. “He back yet?” she asked worriedly, seeing all the empty bottles and both Damon and Elena looking like their mental torture was as bad as what Stefan was going through. 

“Not yet,” Damon said shakily, taking another swig from the bottle. He had given up on glasses hours ago and so had Elena. 

Chloe nodded gravely and decided to sit and wait a while. If nothing else to make sure Damon and Elena were okay. She was very glad that she couldn’t hear what they could. It was about twenty minutes later when Damon and Elena got up and headed towards the cell so Lucifer and Chloe followed them, assuming that meant good news. Chloe shuddered when she saw Maze cleaning her blades before putting them away and stopped in horror in the doorway, regretting coming back here at the sight of Stefan. 

Damon immediately fell to his knees in front of his brother and Elena was clearly waiting for something. “What have I done?” Stefan moaned, tears streaking down his cheeks. 

“Hey, shh shh shh. It’s okay, Stef. I’m here. Look at me, little brother,” Damon said gently, using his hands on Stefan’s cheeks to force his brother’s head up. He had to see his eyes to be sure. 

“What have I done, brother?” Stefan cried, look of anguish filling his eyes. 

Damon turned to Elena and nodded and she blurred out of the room as Damon started undoing the restraints before hugging Stefan whose forehead fell forward to his brother’s shoulder. “Shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you, Stef. Everything’s gonna be okay,” Damon ran a hand through his brother’s bloody hair as Elena came back with three water bottles filled with blood. 

“Here you go, Stefan,” she handed him the first one, but Stefan just shook his head. “It’s animal,” she assured him. “We’ll give it a bit before we get you back on the good stuff. Just drink it.” 

“No,” Stefan groaned. “You should kill me, Damon. Please. Just let me die. I can’t…” 

“Not gonna happen, little brother. Just drink,” Damon took the bottle from Elena and tried to hand it to him himself.

“No!” Stefan snapped, slapping the bottle out of Damon’s hands. 

“Just drink enough to heal yourself, Stefan,” Elena begged. “Then we can talk about the rest, okay? Please?” 

When Stefan noticed the tears in Elena’s eyes and the crying human in the doorway, he sighed and took the second bottle Elena offered while Lucifer retrieved the first and handed it back to Elena. It took two of the bottles before Stefan’s wounds healed. “Am I done?” Maze asked. 

“Yes. Thank you Maze,” Lucifer told her gratefully. 

“Anytime,” she smirked as she headed out. 

“There you go, brother. You look much better. Now let’s get you cleaned up and in some clean clothes,” Damon tried to coax him up. 

“No,” Stefan shook his head. “I healed like you wanted. Now please brother. If you care for me at all…put me out of my misery…all those people…I can’t…don’t make me live with this, Damon. Please.” 

Chloe couldn’t take anymore. She turned and walked out, pouring a drink of her own once she got back to the lounge. She didn’t need to talk to Stefan anymore. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he was no threat as long as he was in his right mind. No one could fake that kind of grief. Elena came out a few minutes later, blurred through the lounge and returned with a bucket of water, a rag, and a bundle of clothes before both she and Lucifer returned to the lounge and got back to their drinking. “Is he…” Chloe couldn’t finish her question. 

“Damon’s cleaning him up and getting him into some clean clothes right now. He’s still refusing to do anything himself,” Elena said sadly. This was even worse than the last time. Probably because the last time he hadn’t actually killed anyone, nor had he turned his humanity off. 

“He needs some help. Professional help,” Chloe couldn’t help but say, hoping that she wasn’t overstepping her bounds. 

“Jenna has a PhD in Psychiatry,” Elena told her. 

“That’s good. But maybe…I mean…it’s easy to ignore family, no matter how knowledgeable they are…”

“I know. But that’s all we’ve got. It’s not like any normal shrink could deal with stuff like this,” Elena sighed. 

“Well…” Lucifer spoke up. When Elena looked at him curiously he said, “There is my therapist. She’s in the know about all the angels and devil and demon stuff. She’s even dating my brother and raising a Nephilim.”

“A Nephilim is…” Elena asked, not familiar with that word. 

“Half human, half angel. She and my brother have a son,” Lucifer told her. “And she’s very good at what she does.” 

“If she can deal with the devil’s issues, I’m sure she can help with a vampire’s,” Chloe half-joked. 

“Yeah. Okay. Start sounding her out. If Jenna can’t make much progress over the next few days, if she’s willing, we’d appreciate her help,” Elena decided. It was much easier trusting those who were carrying their own secrets than any random human like Ella and Dan. 

“I have an appointment with her in the morning. I’ll speak with her then,” Lucifer promised. 

“Thank you,” Damon said relieved as he came back into the room, grabbing his bottle from the bar. “I gave him his daylight ring back, but he won’t wear it, so I locked him in and locked the cover over the window too.” 

“Good. We’ll try to get him to eat some more in the morning,” Elena sighed. 

“Speaking of eating…” Damon said pointedly. 

“Yeah. I know,” Elena nodded before turning to Lucifer and Chloe. “You’re welcome to hang out if you want, but Damon and I really need to go find our own dinner right now.” 

“You’ll be okay? I mean…you’re a little drunk and emotional so…” Chloe said nervously. 

“Alcohol actually dulls the bloodlust and we’re not emotional enough to have any accidents,” Damon told her, completely understanding why she wanted to be sure. When no one else said anything, he and Elena headed out to find dinner. 

“We should probably go too,” Chloe told Lucifer. 

“Go ahead. I’m gonna stay and make sure they’re okay when they get back,” Lucifer told her as he got up to start cleaning up the mess. He wasn’t sure why he worried so much over them, but it was clear that he was getting quite attached to this little family. Damon and Elena in particular. 

“Okay. Just…be careful, Lucifer,” she said cryptically. She worried that he might be getting a little more attached than was wise to the couple, but she knew better than to say anything outright. At least not unless it became an issue.


	13. Chapter 13

Over the next few days, Jenna made very little, if any progress with Stefan, who was still being kept locked up for his own safety. Lucifer had dropped by once in that time, and let them know that Linda was willing to help and would be available on Monday if needed. Since it would have to be a house call, she had to find time in her schedule that would allow it. When Saturday rolled around Lucifer came by again, with Chloe this time. She had been worried about Stefan and wanted to see how he was doing.

“Yeah, we haven’t been able to get through to him. Lucifer’s therapist is coming by on Monday, but we still can’t even let him out of the cell. We’ve had to resort to blackmail to make him eat, but we can still only get enough in him to keep him functioning,” Jenna said sadly when she asked about him. 

“Maybe I could try and talk to him? I mean, I’m an unbiased neutral party,” she shrugged. She’d been having nightmares about his state and would do pretty much anything to help him at this point. 

“It’s worth a shot,” Damon shrugged. He intended to stay with her anyway. He didn’t think Stefan would go so far as to hurt her to try and force them to kill him, but it cost nothing to be careful. He led her down and unlocked the door. 

Chloe’s concern increased when she saw him just sitting on the cot, hugging his knees to his chest and staring blankly at the wall. He didn’t even respond to her presence until she spoke. “Hi Stefan,” she said gently. 

“Who are you?” Stefan asked curiously. He’d seen her before…and smelled her before, but no one had mentioned anything about who she was or why they had a human here who was apparently in on their secret. 

“I’m Chloe. I’m…a detective with the LAPD,” she hesitated before telling him that part, but then reasoned that it might help him listen to what she had to say a little better. 

“You can’t arrest me,” Stefan shook his head. “If you put me in prison I would either desiccate from starvation or end up killing everyone else there. Probably the latter. You’ll have to kill me, but that’s okay. I won’t stop you.”

“Not an option, little brother,” Damon said firmly from where he was leaning against the wall. 

“Just convince him. Please,” Stefan begged Chloe. “It’s the only way to keep people safe. That’s what you want too right?” 

Chloe shook her head and sat down next to him on the cot. “What I /want/ is justice, and there’s no justice in executing someone for being sick.” Yes, she wanted to protect people too and if there weren’t people who could and would prevent something like this from happening again, she would take the death option, but in this case it wasn’t necessary. 

“Sick or not, I still killed all those people,” Stefan said emotionlessly. 

“I know,” Chloe nodded. “I don’t know how familiar you are with the justice system in this time or what it was like when you originally come from, but we have a thing here. Not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.” 

“And what happens to those people in this situation,” Stefan asked pointedly. 

“They would be sent to a hospital where they could get treatment and medications to help keep them from hurting themselves or others,” Chloe told him. 

“And that would be just as bad if not worse than putting me in prison,” Stefan argued, cutting her off before she could continue. 

“I know,” she agreed. “No one human can help you. You are already in the only place you can get help. You have to understand that it’s not your fault. /Not guilty/ remember?” she emphasized the part that she had been trying to get across. 

“If it’s not my fault then whose fault is it?” Stefan scoffed. 

“It’s no one’s fault,” Chloe told him. “Yes, what happened was awful, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” When Stefan just huffed and turned away without responding, Chloe sighed. “Just think about it, okay?” She still didn’t get a response, so she left, Damon locking the door behind them. 

“Thank you for trying,” Elena said with a sad smile as they came out. 

“Hopefully he’ll at least think about what I said and listen a little more to Linda.” 

“If Linda has time, I’m gonna see if she’ll talk to Jeremy too,” Jenna said as she came in. “He won’t even talk to Stefan. He can’t face him. Still blames himself no matter what we say.” 

“Yes, he would likely benefit from her services as well,” Lucifer told them. “At least he would be able to go see her in her office rather than needing to be a house call so it should be easier to schedule.”

“Jeremy isn’t here?” Chloe asked curiously. She thought they always stayed in pairs and he was the only one missing. 

“He’s out on a date,” Damon chuckled. “He’s got it bad for that hot little scientist.” 

“I’ll be meeting him for a little while to feed later on,” Jenna explained. “That’s the only time we really need to keep an eye on each other.” 

“And most of us don’t really even /need/ that, but better safe than sorry,” Elena added. 

“So Ella is safe with him?” Chloe asked before she realized how offensive that might sound. She might have asked anyway though, just to be sure. 

“Definitely,” Damon told her. “Probably safer than without him if you want to get technical.” 

Elena considered explaining that Jeremy would only bite her with her permission, but then it would get into the whole, not having anyone to keep him in check which would mean revealing some of the more intimate aspects of their nature and how blood sharing in a sexual context is much different from simply feeding to eat and she didn’t want to open that can of worms so just let it be at that. 

Chloe only stuck around for another hour before heading out, but as usual, Lucifer stayed longer. There wasn’t anything going on at the club for a few more hours, after all. Damon and Elena promised to come by the club later, but were planning to wait until Jenna got home from meeting Jeremy for dinner. 

Damon and Elena pulled out their fancy club clothes again to head out, and were surprised to meet up with Jeremy and Ella at the club too. It went much the same as their night had last weekend, but with the addition of Jeremy and Ella. Naturally, Elena’s dances with her brother were exceptionally chaste, and Jeremy didn’t dance with Damon or Lucifer at all. He wasn’t into guys even if Damon wasn’t his brother in law. He didn’t have a problem with the way the rest of them danced with Ella though. None of the vampires were the jealous type. It came from being a very sexual species. Since Damon and Elena were there too, Jeremy was able to do a bit of grazing too. Even though he’d already eaten, a snack never went amiss. 

Other than Jeremy, everyone got at least a few dances with Lucifer as they all made the rounds of the dance floor, and none of those dances stayed pg rated. Most of them far surpassed pg-13 territory as well and they all had a lot of fun. Like usual, Lucifer disappeared upstairs with some random company sometime after midnight, and Jeremy and Ella left not long after that, leaving Damon and Elena to shut the place down. Neither of them were surprised to find that there was a human in the house when they got home, but they had other things on their mind first after the full evening of foreplay and teasing. 

Once they were soaking in the hot bath afterwards, Elena settled comfortably in her husband’s arms and asked, “Do you think they’ll last?” 

“The little Gilbert and the scientist?” Elena nodded. “Maybe. I hope so.” 

“You do?” 

“Yeah. It’ll do him good to have someone. You know how hard it is to really connect to people. Since she knows about us, it’s as good of a chance as vampires ever get,” Damon chuckled. 

“Maybe we should try and set Jenna up with that guy detective then. Dan, I think his name was,” Elena chuckled. 

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Damon shrugged. “And if we’re gonna do that we might as well go all the way and play matchmaker with Stef and the other detective too,” he laughed, at least partially joking despite the fact that he knew that Elena would run with it anyway. He wasn’t much on the matchmaking thing, but he did want his family to be happy. He would leave it in Elena’s capable hands. She was far better at such things than him, after all.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mentions of canon-typical suicidal thoughts
> 
> Also note: I am not a therapist

Normally, during the weekdays they were all out doing their own things, but with the situation with Stefan, they were taking turns going out and staying home. All of them wanted to be home on Monday morning though. First of all, they all liked to know who all was in on their secret, so they wanted to meet Linda. She was also a curiosity because she was a human dating an angel and raising their Nephilim baby. That made her very interesting even without the whole therapist to the devil thing. Not to mention, Damon felt like he needed to be close-by just in case Stefan had to be restraining. Like with Chloe the other day, he didn’t think it was likely, but he would rather be here and not needed than vice versa. Jenna wanted to stay close as much out of professional curiosity as anything. Elena and Jeremy were planning to go out and have a brother sister day after the initial meeting and explanations talk. 

Linda pulled up at the house and blinked at it for a moment. She had a pretty nice house herself, but this one even put hers to shame. She shook it off pretty quickly though. These people would be far from her first rich patients, though they were the first vampires. She was glad that she had been able to take a few days to process before actually walking into this lion’s den though. Lucifer had assured her that they wouldn’t hurt her, and that they didn’t hurt anyone, along with the basic story of what happened to necessitate this visit. If there was one person whose judgement she trusted it was Lucifer. That didn’t make her any less nervous about meeting her first vampires, but it did help her not be afraid for her life at least. 

She took a few deep breaths before getting out of the car. She mentally reminded herself that they could hear basically everything when the door opened before she even got a chance to knock. “Good Morning. You must be Dr. Linda. I’m Jenna. Come on in.” 

“Nice to meet you, Jenna,” Linda said with a nervous smile. “I understand that we’re colleagues of a sort?” 

“Of a sort,” Jenna chuckled. “I don’t actually see patients outside of the family though. Partially because I couldn’t really pass for forty three.” 

“Yeah, you look closer to twenty three,” Linda joked nervously. 

“I was twenty four when I was turned and stopped aging so that’s about right,” Jenna laughed as they got to the living room. “This is my nephew Jeremy, my niece Elena, and her husband Damon. Damon’s brother is the one having a tough time right now,” she introduced everyone. 

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Linda said, clutching her bag tighter than normal and trying to hide her nerves. 

“You can take a seat. We won’t bite,” Damon joked, getting groans and eye rolls from the rest of the family. 

Linda couldn’t help but relax a little as she laughed, taking a seat. Bad jokes made them seem more like simple normal people. “So I got the basic gist of what’s going on from Lucifer, but is there anything else you want to add before I go see him?” she looked more to Jenna than the rest, but wasn’t about to discount anything they said either. Suicidal patients were always the hardest and she had cleared her whole day for this. 

“Since I’m not sure what all Lucifer told you, we’ll just start from the beginning,” Jenna said, looking to Damon for the start of the story. 

Damon told her a somewhat shortened version of their entire vampire lives, starting from Stefan accidentally killing their father and then turning off his humanity and his first stint as a ripper, then the incident in 1912. The ‘ripper of Monterey’ thing that lasted a decade. The animal blood and how bad it was for vampires but he didn’t trust himself with human blood. Proving that it was possible for a ripper to learn control and convincing Stefan to let them teach him. How well he’d been doing for so many years and then this. Once the story was told, Jenna chimed in with her impressions and professional opinions, and Elena and Jeremy added a few anecdotes about Stefan and his personality as well.

It was two hours later before they finished, and Linda had a much clearer picture of the problem now. She just hoped she was up to the challenge. They offered her lunch before she got started and when she noticed that it was a little after eleven, she decided to accept. That way she wouldn’t need to take a break when she got hungry. They didn’t have much in the way of food in the house, but the sandwich and chips were plenty good enough. The meal was spent getting to know the rest of the family a little better and thus getting a better handle on the family dynamics as a whole. 

Once she finished eating, Elena and Jeremy headed out to hit the beach for the afternoon while Linda headed back to see Stefan. She had been told that he was locked up for his own safety. They had also mentioned that vampires were much stronger than humans. Even half-starved, weakened by animal blood vampires. Seeing the steel box with the huge bar over the door, she had to forcibly remind herself of those two facts. She also had to fight not to show her innate fear when Damon locked her in, telling her to just give a yell or knock on the door when she was done. She understood the purpose. She was the one who didn’t want anyone else present while they talked and given his speed and strength, he could get by her with no effort at all. It was still jarring though. 

“Hello, Stefan,” she said gently, moving to sit at the opposite end of the cot from him due to the lack of seating. She definitely wasn’t sitting in what looked like some kind of torture chair. 

“And who are you now?” Stefan asked wearily. 

“I’m Dr. Linda Martin,” she told him. “Therapist to the devil,” she tried to open with a joke to set him at ease and also let him know that she was more than familiar with non-human issues. Normally her client list would be confidential, but they all knew this already from Lucifer himself. 

Stefan huffed. “What? The fake evil wasn’t enough for you, now you have to try and take on the real evil?” 

“You think you’re evil?” Linda asked non-judgmentally. 

“Don’t you?” he scoffed. 

“What I think isn’t the issue here,” she told him. “Why do you think you’re evil?” 

“Look at how many people I’ve killed? Isn’t it obvious?” 

“What you do and who you are can be very different things,” she explained. “Especially when there are two sides of yourself fighting for dominance.” When he just gave her a skeptical look, she tried an anecdote. “Let me give you a scenario. Let’s say I have a patient who is a schizophrenic. He hears voices that tell him to do terrible things. He takes medication to help dull those voices and help him ignore them. One day he forgets to take his medication and the voices overwhelm him and he hurts some people. Is he evil?” 

“That’s different,” Stefan shook his head. 

“How so?” she asked. 

“Because he’s not a monster at the core. In that analogy, the good me would be the voices and the monster is what I am. I’m a vampire. We’re predators. It’s in our nature. We’re monsters. Just because we choose to cover that up and deny it, doesn’t change the facts.” 

“People could say the same about humans,” Linda pointed out. “Humans kill each other all the time. Humans hunt and kill those weaker than them for sport. You don’t think the animals we kill would consider us monsters? Does that make all humans monsters?”

“Of course not,” Stefan said quickly. 

“Then why would the actions of other vampires mean that all vampires are monsters?” Linda asked pointedly. “Isn’t it what you /choose/ to do that makes you who you are?” 

“And I chose to murder almost two dozen people,” Stefan told her. 

“No. /You/ didn’t. The person I’m sitting here talking to right now did nothing of the sort. Your ‘voices’ temporarily overwhelmed you. /You/ are not responsible.” 

“It’s going to happen again. And again,” Stefan said. “How many more people have to die before my brother accepts the inevitable? That I can’t be saved.” 

“Everyone can be saved, Stefan. Everyone,” Linda said firmly. 

“You don’t really believe that,” he scoffed. 

“Yes. I do. That’s why I do this job. That’s why I’m here with you now,” she assured him. 

“There are no medications that can help me. No therapy in the world is going to stop the ripper when he gets started,” Stefan pointed out. 

“I know. Which is why stopping ‘the ripper’ is your family’s job. I’m here to help /you/ get past what /he/ did.” Linda almost smiled at the way that Stefan had called it ‘the ripper’. He was started to subconsciously separate himself from the monster. That was a good sign that she had to reinforce. 

“They didn’t stop him this time,” Stefan said petulantly. “They promised that they would keep me from hurting anyone. They promised that it would be okay.”

“You blame them,” Linda realized. They were making progress. 

“No…yes…maybe…I don’t know,” Stefan sighed.


	15. Chapter 15

“Okay,” Linda said thoughtfully. “Who do you blame then? Jeremy? He was the one who was supposed to be watching you.”

“No,” Stefan shook his head. “It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault. He’s just a kid. He couldn’t have known what he was getting into.”

“And yet he helped Jenna get control of her ripper side,” Linda pointed out. “Was it Jenna’s fault? Maybe she made it seem easier than it should have been? Maybe she took some of the attention that should have been on you?” She had a feeling that she knew exactly who he blamed. She had gotten enough information on their backstory to form a suspicion. It was just a matter of making Stefan realize it. 

“No. Of course not. She needs help too. It’s not her fault. She can’t control being a ripper.” 

“Okay. Elena then?” 

“Damon, okay!” Stefan snapped. “I blame Damon. It’s his fault. He knew how dangerous I was. He’d seen it. More than once. I was doing okay before. On the animal blood. That wasn’t good enough for him though.”

“So you think he got you off the animal blood and got you drinking humans again to make your ripper side take over? You think that was his plan all along?” 

“I…no,” Stefan deflated. “Ten years ago I would have said yes, but now…”

“Is it possible that you’re blaming him more out of habit than because he did anything wrong now?” 

“I don’t know,” Stefan said in frustration, burying his hands tightly in his hair. 

“Okay. That’s okay. Let’s go through it step by step. Tell me about how the decision was made to get you back on human blood,” she said as she settled in for the story, which led to the realization that it had been Stefan’s decision, though Damon encouraged it. That led to the description of the process, which Linda had to hide her wince more than once, but she recognized the core of the method. It was classic deprogramming. That led to the realization that Damon’s goal wasn’t for Stefan to lose control, but just for him to be happier and healthier. Discussion turned towards how things had settled once he had basic control and finally the night when everything fell apart. In hindsight, the more volatile Stefan should have been with Damon and Elena, especially while his emotions were on edge, and no one, even Damon, could or would dispute that, but as Linda reminded Stefan, hindsight is always twenty/twenty. It had been a mistake. A costly one, but a mistake nonetheless.

Since the issue of blame was settled, they could get back to the question of next steps. “Do you truly think you deserve to die?” she asked him. 

“I think that those people deserve justice. And that any future victims need to be protected,” Stefan said evenly. 

“And you think that your death would be justice?” she addressed the first issue first. 

“I…I did,” Stefan admitted. 

“But you don’t now?” 

“That detective…Chloe…she said…”

“What did she say?” 

“That killing someone for something they couldn’t control isn’t justice,” Stefan said. 

“And you think, as a detective, that she is the expert on that?” Linda asked.

“I guess she would be, yeah,” he shrugged. 

“Good. So we can agree that you dying isn’t justice, yes?” Stefan nodded. “Then let’s address your next point. Saving future victims. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there is another mistake that leads to another situation like this in the future. Your brother said that this is the first time it’s happened since nineteen twelve, is that right?” Stefan nodded again. “So let’s say it takes another hundred years. How many humans do you think you’ll come into contact with in that hundred years?” 

“I don’t know. A lot?” Stefan said, wondering where she was going with this. 

“Hundreds? Thousands? And how many of those people will you have a positive impact on? I can tell you from experience that something as simple as a kind word or a smile, can have a far greater impact than most people realize. It’s even been known to save someone’s life. Even just the way you feed could save someone’s life. Maybe your meal delays someone for five minutes and that causes them to avoid an accident that they would have had.”

“That’s a stretch, don’t you think,” Stefan scoffed. 

“But that’s the point,” she told him. “When you start dealing in hypotheticals anything can happen. So you /might/ lose control again /someday/ and your family /might/ make the mistake of losing you /if/ you do. Then you /might/ kill some people before they stop you. You also /might/ save hundreds or thousands of lives, just by being here going about your daily business. You /might/ make a difference in someone’s life that leads them to go on and find the cure for cancer which /might/ save billions of lives.” She paused to let that sink in before saying, “You can’t say whether the world will be a better place without you in it. You don’t know that. No one can know that. All we can do is the best we can with what we have, and what you have is a family who loves you. /Their/ lives would most certainly not be better off without you.”

“They wouldn’t have to babysit me anymore,” Stefan pointed out, knowing that he was grasping at straws. 

“And you think that would be worth it to them? That they would rather have you gone than help you?” she intentionally didn’t use the word babysit. “Why would they be fighting so hard for you now then?” 

“Damon promised me an eternity of misery,” Stefan pointed out. 

“We all say things we don’t mean when we’re upset,” Linda told him. “Do you really think he meant it? Has he made good on that threat?” 

“No,” Stefan sighed and shook his head. “I thought he did, but…”

“But what?” Linda asked leadingly. 

“But I was wrong.”

“In what way?” 

“He was always just trying to help me. I just couldn’t see it. I…I blamed him for…everything. I shouldn’t have. He didn’t deserve it. He’s always been a better brother than I deserve.” 

“Then let him be the good brother he’s always tried to be. Give him a chance, and give yourself a chance to be a good brother to him too,” Linda said. 

Stefan swallowed heavily and closed his eyes as he took a few deep shaky breaths. “Yeah…okay,” he breathed out. He slowly pulled his ring out of his pocket and put it on his finger. “Okay,” he said a bit steadier. 

“Okay,” Linda smiled brightly and reached over to pat his hand. “Now I understand that Jenna is a good therapist too, but I also know that sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who isn’t family, so I would be happy to add you as a patient if you like. Help you work out all those family issues that they’re all too close to for comfort.”

“I don’t know…I wouldn’t want Jenna to feel like I don’t trust her or need her or anything,” Stefan said worriedly. 

“Why don’t you talk to her about it? Here’s my card. Just give me a call and let me know what you decide.” 

“Okay. And…thank you. Whether I take you up on it or not…I do appreciate this,” Stefan told her. 

“Anytime,” she smiled brightly. “I’m just glad I could help.” She moved over and knocked on the door. 

Damon was unlocking the door seconds later and immediately noticed the ring on Stefan’s hand. “You ready to come out now, little brother?” he asked hopefully. 

“Yeah. I think I’ll be okay now,” Stefan nodded, only to get pulled into a crushing hug by Damon which he returned gratefully. “Thank you, brother. For everything.” 

Damon leaned back and rested his forehead against Stefan’s gripping the back of his brother’s neck. “Always, Stef. Anything you need.” 

Stefan nodded, tears filling his eyes, as Damon stepped back. “Come on. Let’s get you fed.”

“Animal blood,” Stefan said firmly. 

“If that’s what you want,” Damon agreed. He would give it a little while before bringing up trying the human stuff again. He was too glad that his brother was willing to eat to make a fuss about what he was eating. He turned to Linda and said a sincere, “And thank /you/, doctor. I owe you…more than I could ever repay.” 

“It was my pleasure,” Linda nodded. These were the days that she remembered why she went into this line of work in the first place. And why she would never leave it. 

On her way out, Linda was stopped by Jenna, who also thanked her before asking, “Do you think you could make room for Jeremy in your schedule too?” 

“To help him deal with his guilt over how this started?” Linda asked, getting a nod from Jenna. “Absolutely,” she agreed. “My door is open to the rest of you as well anytime you need an outside perspective or opinion.” She wanted to make it clear that she wasn’t looking to make Jenna obsolete, but she knew that the vampire knew too that sometimes family was too close to the problem. 

“And I’m sure we’ll take you up on it,” Jenna chuckled, offering Linda a hug which the woman happily accepted. That seemed to be the cue for Damon to come back in and hand Linda an envelope. She just nodded her thanks and put it in her purse without opening it. It didn’t matter. She would have gladly done this for free. She had all the reward she needed by the light back in Stefan’s eyes and the family that was now putting itself back together.


	16. Chapter 16

When Jeremy and Elena got home to find Stefan out of the room and even sitting at the table drinking a bottle of animal blood, Elena squealed happily and almost tackled him in a hug, while Jeremy looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet. “Stefan…I’m sorry.”

Stefan shook his head and walked over to Jeremy and pulled him into a hug too. “We’re good, Jer. Really.” 

“I think you should both make appointments to talk to Dr. Linda,” Jenna took the chance to speak up. 

It took a bit of doing, but she finally got Jeremy to agree to the therapy. Stefan was an easier sell. Once she assured him that it didn’t bother her, he was perfectly willing to do so. Jenna called and made them both appointments for the next week back to back so they could go together. It only took another week for Elena to put her first matchmaking plan into motion and get Jenna and Dan out on a date. Neither of them minded a bit, but she had to promise Jenna to stay out of it after that though. Whatever happened from there would happen. 

Elena wanted to give Stefan a little more time to get back to himself before trying to set him up with Chloe, but she realized that she might not need to. She had started stopping by at least once a week with different excuses, but it was clear that her main purpose was to check on Stefan. He’d thanked her for caring and for what she said to him when he was in the cell and they started becoming friends, but that was as far as it went for a while. 

Lucifer also visited often, and Lux came up much more often in the family club rotation, now that they could all go at once. Damon and Elena went alone fairly often too though. They had even taken to stopping by the penthouse just to hang out with Lucifer just as he did at their house. While the devil considered the whole family friends, he was closest with Damon and Elena, probably because they seemed to understand him the best. 

It was about a month after Stefan had come out of the cell that Damon convinced him to try human blood again. “Okay. But for now, just the blood bags at home,” Stefan said firmly. “I want to be sure that I can control myself with that before I go out to feed on living people.” Linda had helped him to get over a lot of his fear, but he still wanted to be extra careful. 

“That’s completely understandable,” Damon agreed as he went to get a bag from their emergency stash. Stefan took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves before he opened the bag, and his brow furrowed as soon as the smell hit him. “What’s wrong? Is it bad?” Damon asked him. It had been a while since they’d refreshed it but it should have been good for another month or two at least. 

“No. I don’t think so. Just…” Stefan trailed off before taking a small sip. And then a bigger one. A look of complete confusion spread over his face. 

“You’re starting to worry me here, little brother,” Damon said nervously. 

“I’m fine,” Stefan said in bafflement. 

“Okay…” Damon waved a hand clearly wanting more. 

“I mean…I’m completely fine. No bloodlust at all,” Stefan tried to explain more clearly. 

“So back to like you were before all this mess then?” Damon tried to understand. 

“No. Better than that. Like I’m not a ripper at all. Like…it’s good in a normal way, but not even a hint of the bloodlust.” 

“That’s…not possible,” Damon said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around this. 

“I know,” Stefan agreed. “I can’t explain it.”

“Come on,” Damon grabbed his arm. 

“Where are we going?” Stefan asked with a chuckle as his brother dragged him from the room. 

“We’re gonna grab Elena and go for a live feed,” Damon told him. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He disappeared up the stairs and came back a moment later with Elena looking just as confused as they were. 

“I’m not sure this is the best idea…” Stefan said, not nearly as nervous as he would have been, but still not completely convinced. 

“That’s why I brought Elena too. And we’ll be watching very carefully. I swear,” Damon assured him. 

“Like I would miss this?” Elena asked incredulously. “If this is true…” 

They parked it in an alley and Elena went to find a meal to compel back for Stefan. When he easily stopped and confirmed that there was no bloodlust even live, they were even more shocked. There was no reason to cut their meals short though. They kept grabbing people until they’d all drank their fill, though they were quite distracted by trying to figure out how this could have happened. 

On the way home, Stefan was the first to float a theory. “Maybe I just outgrew it or something? It’s not like any ripper has ever lived as long as I have.” 

“I doubt it,” Elena shook her head. “If that’s what it was then it should have been a gradual thing, but it was just as strong as ever before all this.”

“Then what could have changed? I mean…unless you ended up with some crazy kind of animal blood that I’ve never had before…we haven’t done anything different,” Stefan said. 

“Yes, we have,” Damon had a light bulb moment. “Demon blood.”

“What?” Stefan asked confused. 

“Oh my god. That’s right. He bit Maze,” Elena gasped. 

“Wait, so that really was a demon?” Stefan asked. “I thought you were just trying to scare me or something. Or making a comment about her skills in torture.”

“No. She really was a demon. Just like Lucifer really is the devil,” Damon told him. 

“You really think demon blood could be a cure for being a ripper?” Elena asked. 

“I can’t think of anything else it could be. Can you?” Damon replied. 

“No. I can’t,” Elena shook her head, causing Damon to make a hard u-turn. 

“What are you doing?” Stefan asked curiously, still trying to wrap his brain around the demon blood cure thing. 

“Going to Lux. We need to get Lucifer to get Maze to donate some more blood for Jenna,” Damon said as though it should be obvious. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean we can’t be sure…”

“Well either way it won’t hurt. You proved that demon blood isn’t harmful, so worst case scenario it just doesn’t work,” Elena shrugged. 

“And using the phone never dawned on you?” Stefan laughed as they skidded into Lucifer’s private garage that he’d invited them to use a few weeks ago. 

“Asking for his minion’s blood isn’t really a phone kind of conversation you know?” Damon chuckled. 

Once they went up the elevator, they had to get Lucifer to invite Stefan in before they could get to the subject. Once they explained, Lucifer burst into laughter. “That’s priceless. Demon blood helping vampires have /more/ control. /Saving/ lives. Maze will be horrified.” 

The rest of them couldn’t help but join him in his laughter. When he put it like that it was pretty funny. Once they had control again, Elena was the one to ask, “Will you see if she’ll let Jenna feed on her too?” 

“Yeah, I doubt that’ll happen,” Lucifer shook his head. “But I should be able to convince her to part with some blood for Jenna to drink from a cup or something.”

“That’ll work,” Damon nodded. “Thanks.”

“I’ll bring it by once I can get it from her,” Lucifer promised before they were interrupted by Chloe coming up to get Lucifer for a case so the Salvatores headed home. They didn’t want to tell Jenna about the potential cure until it was in hand. 

It took Lucifer almost a week to convince Maze to cough up the blood and he’d had to rope Chloe in to do the convincing, but he finally had it and headed straight for the vampire’s house. Once Jenna had it explained, she wasted no time downing the blood, wrinkling her nose at the taste. “Tastes ashy,” she said distastefully, making Lucifer chuckle. He fully intended to inform Maze of that fact. Jenna immediately ran to the fridge and grabbed a blood bag, amazed when she had no signs of the blood lust either. 

They all decided to keep the groups the same, just in case this ‘cure’ was only temporary. They hoped it wasn’t though. If for no other reason than the fact that none of them liked the idea of bugging Maze for more blood. They doubted it was temporary though. If it were, then the effects should only last as long as the demon blood was in their system, but it had been well over a month for Stefan and there was no way it had stuck around for so long. Being free of the ripper even gave Stefan enough of a confidence boost to ask Chloe out a few weeks later.


	17. Chapter 17

Five months after their new friends had come into their lives, they had become such regular fixtures that it was hard to believe that it hadn’t always been that way. Ella had practically moved into the vampire mansion and she and Jeremy were so serious that she was even considering vampirism. Jenna and Dan had hit it off pretty well too, and Dan often stayed the night, but neither of them were rushing for anything permanent just yet. Chloe and Stefan were moving at a snail pace in their own relationship, but that was just their natures. 

As for Lucifer, Damon, and Elena…they were three peas in a pod. So much so that all three of them were developing more feelings than were wise. And all three of them were doing their level best to keep those feelings under wraps and not let on that anything had changed. It worked for the most part until one night, the three of them were hanging around the penthouse, tension causing them to drink more than usual.

Damon was browsing Lucifer’s library, only stumbling slightly as he read over the spines of the books before he spotted one of his favorites. “Oh, I love this book. I don’t think I’ve ever read the English translation though.” 

“Oh? What language have you read it in?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“The original Greek,” Damon told him. 

“You speak Greek?” 

“We both do,” Elena chuckled. “And Latin, French, Old English, Old Slavonic, Old Norse, and some Old German.”

“Impressive,” Lucifer whistled. 

“I learned most of it from Damon’s head,” Elena said amusedly. “Everything but the last half of the Old Norse which we learned separately.”

“I still can’t imagine how you must have dealt with that. Being trapped in someone else’s mind for so long,” Lucifer shook his head. 

“It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure,” Elena admitted. “But I’m still glad it happened.” 

“You and me both,” Damon grinned as he returned to the couch and half-plopped half-fell down next to her, wrapping his arm around her. 

“Why’s that?” Lucifer asked. He’d never gotten anything more than the barebones of that story so he didn’t realize how important it was to their start. 

“Because it helped me understand him,” Elena shrugged. “Before that, I had let Stefan’s bitter stories bias me against him.”

“You said I was a…what was it? A self-serving psychopath with no redeeming qualities,” Damon laughed. 

“But being in his head changed that,” Lucifer nodded in understanding. 

“Yeah. It showed me the truth about him. That he was good and strong and kind, but he had been abandoned, abused, betrayed, and just generally shit on by every single person he ever cared about and that was why he was as messed up as he was.” 

“And the fact that he was ‘messed up’ as you say, didn’t bother you?” Lucifer asked confused. That was what made most people abandon him, after all. 

“I asked her the same thing,” Damon said wryly. “I couldn’t believe that she knew every awful thing that I’d done. Every person that I’d killed…and still cared.”

“Because all you ever needed was to not be alone,” Elena said softly, leaning her head on Damon’s shoulder. “You just needed someone to support you. To tell you that everything would be okay. That it was okay to hurt. Someone to lean on and help you share the burden so that you didn’t lash out.” 

Lucifer smiled softly at them, the feelings he’d been suppressing flaring brightly before he managed to push them back down. He was more sure now than ever that there was no coming between them, even if he would be so crass as to try. “That’s all we all need really,” he said sadly. “I can certainly relate.” 

“Oh?” Damon asked. 

“I’ve mentioned the whole story about my fall from grace where I was thrown away and vilified by my own family, sent to the endless torture of hell and trapped there for millenia, but even up here…it’s…lonely,” Lucifer shrugged. 

“You seem to have plenty of options,” Damon pointed out. 

“It only seems that way,” Lucifer snorted. “All the people that flock to me…they don’t know me or care to. They’re just affected by my aura of desire. Since I’m the angel of desire, it creates a sort of field around me that amplifies things like lust. The only humans that are immune are the detective, Daniel, Ms. Lopez, and Dr. Linda, and the last two are only immune because they built up a tolerance over time. They’re the only ones that actually know me.” 

Elena reached over and took his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for you.” 

Lucifer turned his hand over in hers and squeezed back as their eyes met. “Thank you,” he said in almost a whisper. 

Damon felt the icy hand of fear grip him as he saw something between them. He forced the feeling away for the moment though as Lucifer and Elena tore their eyes away from each other. He was definitely too drunk to think about it right now. Especially the fact that he couldn’t even be positive which one of them he was jealous of. Jealousy was a new enough emotion for him in the first place. At least to this degree. He just shoved it all back into a little box in the corner of his mind to consider when he was more sober. Much more sober. Silence fell heavy in the room and the tension could be cut with a knife before Damon suggested going downstairs to party in the club and the other two quickly jumped on that idea. 

Unlike most nights they were there, Lucifer mostly disappeared once they were downstairs. He danced with pretty much everyone but them for hours before heading back upstairs with his evening entertainment. Both Damon and Elena could tell that his heart wasn’t in it though, but that could just be because they knew what they were looking at now. They left not long after that, not really in the mood to party anymore, not that they had been much in the mood before they came down, but at least they were sober enough to drive home now thanks to vampire metabolism. 

As if by unspoken arrangement, neither Damon nor Elena spoke of it again after that for over a week until Jenna mentioned that Lucifer hadn’t been by in a while. It was Elena that broke first that night, waiting until everyone else in the house was out on their respective dates before she said hesitantly, “Is Lucifer avoiding us? Or are we avoiding him?” 

Damon took a few deep breaths closing his eyes. He had known that he couldn’t run from this forever. “We had a good run didn’t we?” he asked sadly. 

“Huh?” Elena asked completely confused. 

“You and me. Fifteen years. Most marriages don’t last so long,” Damon could feel his heart breaking even as he said it. 

“What are you talking about, Damon?” That didn’t clear up her confusion at all. 

“You love him,” Damon sighed. “And it’s obvious that he loves you too.” 

Elena gasped as she realized what Damon was thinking and turned, straddling his lap and putting her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. “You can just get that thought of your head right this second, Damon Salvatore.”

“Don’t deny it,” Damon all but begged. That would just make this so much harder. 

Elena sighed. She knew that the only way to play this was the bald truth. She had never lied to Damon before and she didn’t intend to start now. “I can’t deny that I love him. You’re right about that. But if you think for one second that I would leave you…for him or /anything/…then you’ve clearly lost your mind.”

“I don’t want you to stay with me just because of obligation or loyalty or whatever…” 

“Shut up, Damon,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “That’s not what this is. I love you, Damon. With everything I am. No matter what I feel for him, that hasn’t changed. It could never change. YOU are my life. My whole world. I would die before I hurt you. I can’t help that I fell in love with him too, but that doesn’t change my feelings for you. YOU are my choice, Damon. Now and forever. Okay?” 

Damon could see the fire of truth in her eyes and felt the despair that had been crushing him since that night in the penthouse easing. “Okay,” he breathed easy. Now that he knew that he wasn’t and couldn’t lose her, he could stomach finding other solutions. “If you wanted to be with us both…I would be okay with that,” he told her. 

“I think the start of this conversation proved otherwise,” Elena shook her head amusedly. 

“No, really. That was just…I thought I was losing you. As long as you’re still mine too, I can share. I want you to be happy, ‘Lena. No matter what,” Damon told her earnestly. It wouldn’t be the first time he shared a woman he loved to make her happy. 

“No, Damon,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to timeshare the two of you. None of us deserve that. Period.” 

“Well…maybe…if he was willing…he could just…join us?” Damon suggested hesitantly. 

“What, like all three of us together at once?” Elena asked confused. 

“Yeah. I mean…that way you still have both of us always without the ‘timeshare’ thing,” he shrugged. 

“No, Damon,” she shook her head again. “That can’t work if you’re just doing it for me. If either of you are just doing it for me. It’ll just fall apart and end up hurting all of us.” 

“What if it’s not just for you?” Damon bit his lip nervously. 

“What do you mean?” Elena asked. 

“What if…I kinda…love him too?” 

“Do you?” she asked curiously. When Damon tried to look away, Elena pulled his face back to her. “Uh-uh. None of that. It’s time for a real, honest, laying it all out on the table talk. Do you love him?” she asked seriously. 

“Yes,” Damon admitted. 

“As much as you love me?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. I mean, we haven’t known him so long. We don’t have so much history with him,” Damon tried to be as honest as he could. 

“But do you think you /could/ love him as much as me, in time?” she asked. “Because that’s the only way this would really work. If the three of us are equal all around.” 

“Yes. I think I could. Do you love him as much as you love me?” he turned the question back on her. 

“Not yet, no. But I think I could too,” she admitted. 

Damon realized the wrench in that plan though. “But this is all dependent on him loving me too,” he pointed out. 

“And if he loves me. We don’t know that for sure either. But if he does love me then there’s a pretty good chance that he loves you too. He acts the same way with both of us, even in dancing.”

Damon couldn’t help the hope he felt blossoming in his heart. “You think?” Elena nodded. “Then I guess we have to have this conversation with him next then?” That would be a lot harder, but Damon had never really been shy about admitting his feelings. Just because he wasn’t good at talking in-depth about them didn’t mean he couldn’t talk about them at all. He would just leave the in-depth part to Elena.


	18. Chapter 18

Damon and Elena agreed to give the idea a few days to settle in their minds and make sure that they were sure it was what they wanted before they talked to Lucifer. The last thing this situation needed was cold feet. That Saturday, they had one more real talk to confirm they were still on the same page before they headed for Lux. If they hadn’t been sure before that Lucifer was avoiding them, they would have been when he took one look at them and said, “I’m sorry, I need to head out somewhere…” as he started walking towards the elevator. 

“Without your shoes?” Elena snorted. 

“Or your cufflinks? With your vest unbuttoned and no jacket?” Damon added amusedly. 

“Yes…well…” Lucifer stammered. 

“We love you,” Elena blurted out, trying to stop him from brushing them off somehow. 

“Pardon?” Lucifer blinked in shock. 

Damon resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the pair of them as he stepped forward and reached his hand to Lucifer’s cheek. It was time to go all in. “We love you, Lucifer,” he said earnestly, looking deep into the devil’s eyes. “If, by chance, you feel the same way, we’d like to be with you.”

“Like, the three of us? For more than just sex?” Lucifer wanted to be sure he was understanding correctly. He was no stranger to threesomes, but it seemed like they were asking for more than that. He knew that, though relatively rare, polyamorous relationships were a thing and that they could work, but he had never considered the idea personally. 

“Yes, Lucifer,” Elena said, stepping forward and taking the devil’s hand. “We’d like to have something real with you.” 

“And…you love me…both of you,” he had to ask one more time. 

“Yes. We both love you, Lucifer,” Elena said threading her fingers with his, heartened when he squeezed her hand. 

“Do you love us?” Damon asked hopefully, trailing his thumb over Lucifer’s cheek. 

Lucifer swallowed heavily, not sure if he could say the words, but actions spoke louder than words anyway. Damon was closer so he leaned forward and closed the distance between them, pressing his lips lightly to the vampire’s, almost experimentally. Damon melted into the kiss as Elena smiled. Her last concern over this was gone now. She didn’t feel even a twinge of jealousy. She was just happy for them. When Lucifer pulled away from Damon he turned to Elena, question in his eyes, and she just smiled brighter and nodded. 

Lucifer let go of Elena’s hand and moved it to her waist, pulling her the last few steps between them, his other hand still resting on Damon’s waist, and lowered his lips to hers. She sank into the kiss just as much as Damon had, and it was Damon’s turn to realize that this could actually work. He didn’t feel left out or possessive in any way, and he had known the moment that Lucifer’s lips had met his that he had been the missing piece that they never knew they needed. He could tell by the way Elena was kissing Lucifer that she realized the same. Damon wrapped one arm around Elena’s lower back, resting his hand on Lucifer’s arm as his other hand carded through Lucifer’s hair. Elena had slid her hand up over Lucifer’s shoulders, running her finger’s along Damon’s arm as her other arm wrapped around Damon, pulling them into a three way embrace that felt nothing short of perfect. 

Once the kiss broke, none of them moved far, their three foreheads resting together as they reveled in the beauty of the moment. Damon was the first to break the silence, unable to wait any longer. “Is that a yes?” he asked hopefully. 

“Yes, I want this, but…” Lucifer felt both of them holding their breath at that last word and he rushed to finish the sentence. “How is this going to work?” 

“We should sit,” Elena suggested, the first to pull away from their embrace to head to the couch, and when Damon and Lucifer joined her, they positioned Lucifer between them. They both turned, half facing him, one leg tucked under them, and an arm over the back of the couch behind Lucifer. Their poses were so similar that one would think they practiced them, but they were just that in tune with each other. Unfortunately, that sent doubts running through Lucifer. He didn’t think he would ever be able to be on that wavelength with them.

Damon saw the flash in Lucifer’s eyes, but didn’t quite know why, so he just settled on carding his hands through the devil’s hair as he let Elena handle this part. “The details, we’ll all have to work out together, of course, but overall…like Damon and I already talked about…the first most important thing is that we need to be open and honest about how we feel, what we want, any doubts or worries we have, and so on.” 

“That’s not something I’m very good at,” Lucifer admitted. 

“That’s okay. As long as you’re willing to try, we can help you. Elena has to help me with that sometimes too,” Damon chuckled. 

Lucifer took a few deep breaths as he considered the answer that they were waiting for. Baring his soul wasn’t something that made him particularly comfortable, but he did love them both. Very much. And he didn’t think he could take losing them. Not now, when he was so close. He understood how this ‘ultimatum’ so to speak, was so important and even crucial. This wasn’t like a normal getting to know you dating situation. This was them wanting to work him into their existing relationship. There were so many ways it could go wrong without that openness. “Okay. I’ll try,” he finally agreed. 

Both Damon and Elena felt better that he had taken the time to think it through. It meant that he was being genuine, not just saying what they wanted to hear. “Good,” Elena breathed out. That was the first hurdle cleared. Now it was time to put it to the test. “Now I understand if you can’t bring yourself to say the words, but if you can just manage a yes or no…do you love me?” 

Lucifer swallowed heavily before turning to look into her eyes with a shaky, “yes.” 

“And do you love me?” Damon asked gently. 

Lucifer turned to look at him the same way. “Yes,” he admitted. 

“Now the most important part…do you love us equally? Or do you think that you could come to love us equally in time?” Elena asked. 

“Yes,” Lucifer found that one much easier to answer, but stumbled a bit over his own return question. He knew it had to be asked though. “Do you both love me equally? As much as you love each other?” 

“I do, yes,” Damon was the first to answer, only a slight worry in his eyes as he looked to Elena since his answer had changed since they talked about it. His answer changed the moment Lucifer had kissed him. 

“So do I,” Elena said with a nod of acceptance towards Damon, getting the same back. 

Lucifer looked back and forth between them, noticing their exchange and taking a moment to let that sink in. Part of him had to wonder if they were telling the truth, but they had been so intent on complete honesty at the start. Surely they wouldn’t break that now. On the most important subjects. Once he had convinced himself of that, he reached out and took both of their free hands in his. “Any other overall things before we get to the details?” he asked. 

“Do you have any concerns or doubts or anything?” Elena asked him. 

“No doubts, no,” Lucifer shook his head. “And any concerns run more along the lines of details.”

“Okay then I guess the first thing do decide is if we’re going to live together or work up to it,” Elena brought up. This was something that she and Damon hadn’t discussed either so they were all going into this subject cold. 

“I think that if we’re going to really be equal, living together would be an important part of that,” Damon said. It wouldn’t really work if the two of them were together in all ways and Lucifer was left out of so much of their life. “It’s not as if we’re needing the time to get to know each other, after all.” 

“That’s true, but it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t make it work without it if you need more time,” Elena told Lucifer. 

“No, I’m good with it. I mean, as long as you don’t expect me to give up the penthouse completely or anything,” Lucifer told them. 

“Of course not,” Damon shook his head. “At least until we’re ready to make this permanent, we should keep options open there.” 

“But that brings up the question of where we’ll live,” Elena jumped in. 

“Well there’s two of you and only one of me, so…” Lucifer shrugged. 

Damon moved his hand from Lucifer’s shoulder to his chin and turned Lucifer’s face to him. “No, Luc. There’s three of us. Not two against one in anything,” he said seriously, pressing a light kiss to the devil’s lips. 

“Damon’s right,” Elena said, running her fingers through his hair. “It’s a decision for the three of us. While I won’t deny that we would like to stay with our family. We’ve all lived together for so long now that it would be weird to be without them. Now that Jenna and Stefan aren’t rippers anymore though, it’s not crucial that we be there, and I know that this club means a lot to you.”

“It does,” Lucifer nodded, feeling much better about their chances now. “But truthfully, I haven’t had the time to give it the attention it deserves in quite a while. Ever since I came back from my last trip to hell last year, the day to day running of the place has stayed mostly in the hands of the managers while I’ve been spending most of my time during the week working at the precinct. And your house is closer to the precinct.”

“How about this then,” Damon suggested. “We stay at our house during the week and we can spend weekends at the penthouse so you can keep up with the club and we can have some fun in the process.”

“That sounds like a perfect solution,” Lucifer grinned. “Elena?” 

“Works for me,” she returned his grin and kissed him happily. “And if at any time you want some help with the club and are comfortable sharing it with us, we would be happy to.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lucifer said with a nod. He wasn’t quite ready to share that much yet. This club was his baby. If they worked out though, he was sure they would get there soon enough. “Anything else before we move on to the fun portion of the evening?” he asked suggestively. 

“Mmm, nothing that can’t wait, I don’t think,” Damon was very much on board and proved it by pressing a lingering kiss to the devil’s neck. Elena quickly showed her agreement with that sentiment as they moved towards the bedroom.


	19. Chapter 19

Damon and Elena had been pining for Lucifer for a while now, so they knew that he was going to end up getting more attention tonight from them both. When Damon moved behind Lucifer to lather attention on his neck, Elena took the front and pulled him into a searing kiss. One of Lucifer’s arms wrapped around the small of Elena’s back while the other reached back to tangle in Damon’s hair. This was the part that Lucifer was plenty familiar with. Elena started untucking Lucifer’s shirt while Damon moved to start unbuttoning it from the top down. Lucifer got the hint and unzipped the back of Elena’s skirt and moved to strip off her blouse. 

Elena stepped away just enough to let her skirt fall to the ground and then allow Lucifer to take off her top, leaving her in just her bra and panties. Then Lucifer turned around as his own upper layers were slid off his shoulders and turned his attention to Damon, kissing him deeply. Elena started pressing kisses over his shoulders as her hands wrapped around to undo Lucifer’s pants while the devil stripped Damon out of his t-shirt. Elena’s hands beat him to Damon’s pants though, so Lucifer just shoved his own down followed by Damon’s before they moved this to the bed. The devil could tell that they weren’t nearly as experienced in the threesome thing, but he had no problem with taking the lead. 

Lucifer laid Elena down on the bed, taking a moment to strip off her bra and underwear before moving over top of her and pulling Damon behind him. Normally there would be a lot more foreplay, but this time he was far too eager to get the show on the road. It wasn’t as if it would end after the first round after all. He had a feeling that vampire stamina could rival his own and looked forward to putting that to the test. Right now, he just needed them. He reached over and grabbed the lube out of his bedside drawer, handing it to Damon as he lathed kisses and hands over Elena’s body. When he felt Damon prodding at his entrance, he told him, “You can’t hurt me.” 

Damon took the hint and slicked up his cock instead of his fingers, and positioned himself at the same time Lucifer positioned himself over Elena and as Damon slid into him, the devil pressed into Elena and all three of them let out breathy moans. It took a few minutes for them to get a decent rhythm going and once they did, Lucifer sat up, wrapping his hand in Damon’s hair and turning his head for a long kiss as Elena’s hands trailed over Lucifer’s chest and stomach. When Lucifer leaned back down, Damon reached around and took one of Elena’s breasts in his hand kneading it as he guided Lucifer’s lips to it. Once Lucifer started sucking, Damon’s hand moved from his hair to Elena’s other breast, fondling them both and Lucifer was going back and forth as Damon pressed kisses and gentle nips over the devil’s back and shoulders. 

Damon was the first to fall over the edge, spilling himself deep in Lucifer’s ass and starting the chain reaction that left them both breathless and panting. They stilled for a moment, riding out their waves before Damon and Lucifer fell to either side of Elena, trailing their hands over each other’s bodies as they caught their breath. Once they could breathe, Damon leaned over and kissed Elena long and deep, followed by Lucifer who then kissed Elena the same as they started gearing up for the next round. Elena pushed Lucifer onto his back, sliding over him to the other side as she and Damon both began trailing kisses all over the hard body, pausing every so often to share a kiss of their own. 

As Elena played with Lucifer’s nipples, Damon continued down and when his lips wrapped around the devil’s hard cock and he tasted both Lucifer and Elena there, he let out a guttural moan. Elena explored the rest of Lucifer’s body for a while until they switched and Elena sucked Lucifer’s cock down. Lucifer was enjoying the hell out of this, and letting his hands play over every inch of body he could reach, eagerly participating each time his lips were captured, but otherwise just letting them explore. Soon enough they switched again and Elena was kissing him deeply as she fondled his balls and let her hand stroke his shaft as Damon’s head bobbed. 

Just when Lucifer wondered if they were going to get him off like this, he noticed Damon nudge Elena who straddled him backwards, and Damon guided her onto Lucifer’s cock as he kissed his wife passionately. Lucifer ran his hands up Elena’s hips and around to her stomach and breasts as he thrust up into her. “Think you can take us both, darling?” he asked huskily as his legs pulled Damon forward. 

“Oh fuck yes,” Elena gasped, leaning back and resting her head on Lucifer’s shoulder, giving Damon clear access. Damon gave a stuttered moan just at the thought before he even slid himself inside her. Lucifer stilled in his thrusts as the second dick stretched her open to give her a chance to adjust. 

“You okay, baby?” Damon asked breathlessly. 

“Amazing,” Elena panted. Damon was more than glad to hear that because this was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt too. The feeling of Lucifer’s hard length pressing so tightly against his wrapped in the vice of Elena was pretty much heaven. And then Lucifer started moving again and it got even better. Once again, it took a moment for the three of them to find a rhythm that worked, but once they did, it was incredible. This time it was Damon’s mouth and Lucifer’s hands on Elena’s breasts as the three of them chased their release together. Lucifer was the one to lose it first, which after all the attention he’d gotten beforehand wasn’t particularly surprising, but the feel of him exploding was all it took to pull both Damon and Elena over the edge together with cries of ecstasy. 

Then it was Damon’s turn to be in the middle as the attention was lathed on him. Lucifer had yet to get over just how responsive both of his new lovers were, but especially Damon. The way every touch made him writhe in pleasure…he wondered if it was a vampire thing. Related to the enhanced senses. He might even remember to ask once they weren’t quite as occupied. Once they were all good and worked up again, Lucifer moved down between Damon’s legs, hoping that the vampire would be okay with this side too, but Damon just lifted his hips with a whimpering moan. Once Lucifer slid his first finger past the tight ring of muscles, Damon gasped out, “Can’t hurt me…” 

Lucifer removed his finger and lined his cock up, sliding in slowly before positioning Elena over Damon and lowering her on his cock. They were familiar enough with each other by this time to be able to hit their rhythm much quicker and they were sated enough to be able to last longer too. After that round they moved the party to the hot tub. They were all wet and sticky by that point, so they appreciated the chance to clean up as they continued to explore their new relationship. By the time they exited the hot tub two hours later, they were all ready to pass out and fell into a heap on the bed, Lucifer tucked between Damon and Elena who were both half on top of him and holding each other as well as him. 

The next morning they woke in the same position, and shared a round of good morning kisses before Lucifer chuckled. “What’s funny?” Elena asked with a grin. 

“It just dawned on me that I’ve made making breakfast for my lovers an art form that is now going to go to waste,” he laughed. 

“We could go for breakfast if you really want to make it. The only reason we don’t usually eat is because none of us like to cook,” Damon said amusedly. “We do eat out relatively often.” 

“Breakfast it is then,” he grinned, sitting up quickly enough to dump them both off of him, pressing a playful slap to both bare asses as he headed for the kitchen, laughing protests ringing after him.


	20. Chapter 20

Sunday found Damon, Elena, and Lucifer spending the day reveling in their newfound relationship. They also spent some time packing up a good portion of Lucifer’s clothes and personal belongings that he wanted to bring with him, though the fragile and priceless artifacts stayed in the penthouse. There was no point risking them in a house full of rowdy vampires. Lucifer had only managed to be present for a handful of fights in the time he’d known them, but he’d seen more than enough to know that vampire tempers were not to be underestimated. 

Late Sunday afternoon, they started moving Lucifer’s stuff over. Normally Sunday nights would be spent at the penthouse, heading home on Monday morning when Lucifer went to the precinct, but they needed a family meeting to explain about their new family member. Thankfully, Dan, Chloe, and Ella were all still there too, having been spending time with their respective partners. It got everything out of the way quickly. The vampires were quick to accept the new trio’s relationship status, as was Ella. Dan and Chloe on the other hand were more confused than anything. There were a lot of questions and misunderstandings cleared up, but neither of them asked anything that would be considered intimate of course. In the end, the two detectives just decided that if the trio was happy then they were happy for them. They didn’t have to understand it to accept it. 

It was only a month after that when Ella officially moved in and made the final decision to be a vampire. Jeremy took care of her turning, and Damon went along with the couple for Ella’s first feed. At least now they knew there was a cure if she ended up being a ripper, but thankfully it wasn’t necessary. Dan and Jenna had just started talking about the subject and Dan was quick to get Ella’s views as a new vampire too. She told him that she got why it wasn’t for everyone, but she was having fun, and would likely have more fun once the emotional instability and insatiable hunger passed. She fully intended to keep her job for at least a few more years until people started to notice that she wasn’t aging. Then she would retire from the police department and see about getting a private lab. 

Ella had taken to heart the example set by the others about doing jobs that didn’t require regular contact with humans. Elena had her writing, Jeremy restored classic cars and bikes. Jenna published psychological articles and books often under her real name for now until it would become obvious that her life span should have ended. After that she was waffling between the ideas of making her computer hobby more full time and writing psychological thriller fiction. Damon had continued studying medieval literature and even done quite a few translations when he got bored. Stefan was still floundering, having spent so long just focusing on keeping control, but he would find something eventually. Her own lab would require a crapton of stuff to start out, but they could compel most of it and what they couldn’t, the vampires happily agreed to fund, and Lucifer fully intended to chip in as well. Ella even already had plans for her first project. She wanted to do a scientific analysis of magic. See if she could figure out how it worked. 

About six months after Ella’s turn, Dan had decided to become a vampire too. He tried to keep his job like Ella, but it was easier said than done. At one point, in his rush to protect an innocent, he ended up using his vampire speed and had to compel eight people to forget it. Once it was pointed out how lucky he was that no one had a camera broadcasting and hoped that no one else saw that he didn’t notice, he realized that he couldn’t stay in the field. Not without risking the entire family by drawing attention. He was only a year away from retirement though and quitting now would gall him. It wasn’t like he needed the money anymore, having been looped into the vampire family completely. It was just the matter of feeling like he was leaving it unfinished. In the end he decided to compel the lieutenant to put him on desk duty while he waited out his year, as annoying as it was. Once he retired, he spent most of his time surfing since that was his true passion. 

Chloe outright refused to become a vampire, no matter how much she loved Stefan. Right up until Trixie turned eighteen and begged them to turn her. When Chloe couldn’t talk her out of it, she decided to bite the bullet and do it too. Trixie had been one of her main reasons for not after all. She ended up making a deal with her daughter. Chloe was two years away from her own retirement and had learned from Dan’s mistake. She would wait until she retired to make the change and Trixie would go after her, when she was twenty-one, once Chloe was settled and past the newbie stage. Trixie decided that was better than the fight, so she agreed. 

Lucifer, Damon, and Elena moved into the penthouse full-time after Dan moved into the vampire house. That was just too many people, and even became more when Chloe and Trixie moved in too. That didn’t mean that they weren’t still frequent visitors though. They were still family, after all, no matter how expanded that family was becoming. Chloe and Dan living in the same house again was a major adjustment, but they made it work and didn’t let Stefan and Chloe move out when they tried. If it had been because they wanted to, like the trio, then no one would have minded, but any strife in the family was best dealt with rather than run away from. Not to mention the fact that Stefan had blossomed as much as Damon had with the love and support of their family. None of them wanted to risk Stefan returning to his reclusive ways, even if he would still have Chloe and likely Trixie this time. Between Linda and Jenna they soon got everyone set to rights and adjusted well. 

The trio’s move to the penthouse also coincided with them bringing Lucifer in on their marriage as well. Since it was in name only, there was no need for pesky laws getting in the way and preventing it. Lucifer also brought them in more on the business side of the club now since they were all living there. Thankfully, the turnover in a place like that was enough that there wouldn’t be any concerns about them not aging and Lucifer could handle any of the longer-term issues like the lawyers and such. The biggest issue was the dispersal of the library when Damon moved out. In the end, it was decided that Damon would take all of the rare and priceless books that Elena had bought for him over the years, still going through Elijah to get them, as well as anything else not in English, since other than Stefan who read Latin, but didn’t exactly enjoy it, he and Elena were the only ones who could read them. In return, a lot of Lucifer’s less valuable and not one of a kind books were sent to the vampire library, since Lucifer’s library was primarily for show anyway. The devil had never been much of a reader. 

Once Chloe and Dan had both retired from the police, Lucifer did too and the three of them ran the club together, not that Elena or Damon stopped their writing and studying. There was plenty of free time with all three of them working. Ella also left the department after the last of her friends did, and Lucifer, Damon, and Elena surprised her with her private lab that they’d already had built and furnished for her. She and Bonnie ended up becoming good friends when Bonnie agreed to help with her work, with the understanding that witches didn’t get outed to the world, but would have access to her conclusions. 

Elena ended up getting a visit from a lawyer about five years after they’d moved into the penthouse and couldn’t help but laugh hilariously at the news that she was, once again, owner of the entire Gilbert estate. Uncle John had apparently died and left everything to her. It wasn’t until she read the letter that came with it that she realized why. She had never really thought any more about her birth parents after everything happened and learning that her most hated uncle was actually her birth father was a definite shocker. It didn’t change the fact that she needed to sell the estate for a second time now. Lucifer stopped her though, suggesting that they just hire people to run the businesses and rent out the homes. He even offered to have it folded into Lux Enterprises to manage it so they wouldn’t have to deal with it. He already had people to do that. Elena agreed as long as any revenue was split between Jeremy, and Jenna. Between their normal fortune, book revenues, and now the Morningstar fortune, it wasn’t like they needed it.


End file.
